Video: At Least 5 Dead, 35 Hurt As Tornadoes Rip Through US State Of Iowa

At least five people died and at least 35 were hurt as powerful tornadoes ripped through the US state of Iowa, with one carving a path of destruction through the small city of Greenfield.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety said Tuesday’s tornadoes killed four people in the Greenfield area, and the Adams County Sheriff’s Office said a fifth person, a woman whose car was blown off the road, was killed by a twister about 25 miles (away. Monica Zamarron, 46, died in the crash Tuesday afternoon. The Iowa Department of Public Safety said Wednesday it’s believed that the number of people injured is likely higher.

Greenfield tornado

The Greenfield tornado left a wide swath of obliterated homes, splintered trees and crumpled cars in the town of 2,000 about 55 miles southwest of Des Moines. The twister also ripped apart and crumpled massive power-producing wind turbines several miles outside the city.

Tuesday’s storms also pummeled parts of Illinois and Wisconsin, knocking out power to tens of thousands of customers in the two states. The severe weather turned south on Wednesday, and the National Weather Service was issuing tornado and flash flood warnings in Texas as parts of the state, including Dallas, were under a tornado watch.

The National Weather Service said initial surveys indicated at least an EF-3 tornado in Greenfield, but additional damage assessment could lead to a more powerful ranking. The tornado appeared to have been on the ground for more than 40 miles, AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter said. A satellite photo taken by a BlackSky Technology shows where the twister gouged a nearly straight path of destruction through the town, just south of Greenfield’s center square.

The deadly twister was spawned during a historically bad season for tornadoes in the US, at a time when climate change is heightening the severity of storms around the world. April had the second-highest number of tornadoes on record in the country. Through Tuesday, there have been 859 confirmed tornadoes this year, 27% more than the U.S. sees on average, according to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. So far, Iowa’s had the most, with 81 confirmed twisters.

On Tuesday alone, the National Weather Service said it received 23 tornado reports, with most in Iowa and one each in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The tornado that decimated parts of Greenfield brought to life the worst case scenario in Iowa that weather forecasters had feared, Porter said. “Debris was lifted thousands of feet in the air and ended up falling to the ground several counties away from Greenfield. That’s evidence of just how intense and deadly this tornado was,” Porter said.

People as far as 100 miles away from Greenfield posted photos on Facebook of ripped family photos, yearbook pages and other items that were lifted into the sky by the tornado. About 90 miles away, in Ames, Iowa, Nicole Banner found a yellowed page declaring “This Book is the Property of the Greenfield Community School District” stuck to her garage door like a Post-It note after the storm passed. “We just couldn’t believe it had traveled that far,” she said.

Greenfield’s 25-bed hospital was among the buildings damaged, and at least a dozen people who were hurt had to be taken to facilities elsewhere. Hospital officials said in a Facebook post Wednesday that the hospital will remain closed until it can be further assessed and that full repairs could take weeks or months. The hospital, with the help of other providers, set up an urgent care clinic at an elementary school with primary care services to start there Thursday, the post said.

Tuesday’s destructive weather also saw flooding and power outages in Nebraska, damage from tornadoes in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and dust storms in Illinois that forced two interstates to be closed. The devastation in Iowa followed days of extreme weather that ravaged much of the middle section of the country, including Oklahoma and Kansas. Last week, deadly storms hit the Houston area, killing at least eight and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands.

(With agency inputs)

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