Tornadoes in Iowa leave several dead and dozens injured

GREENFIELD, Iowa (AP) — Five people died and at least 35 were injured when strong tornadoes ripped through Iowa on Tuesday. One of them left a path of destruction through the city of Greenfield, officials said.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety said Wednesday that four people were killed in the Greenfield area. Officials did not release the names of those killed in the storm because they were still in the process of notifying relatives.

The figures released Wednesday bring the total death toll to five, after authorities previously announced that a woman in a vehicle about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Greenfield was killed by a tornado. The Iowa Department of Public Safety said Wednesday that the number of injured is believed to be higher.

The Greenfield tornado left a wide swath of destroyed homes, splintered trees and crumpled cars in the town of 2,000 residents about 55 miles (88.5 kilometers) southwest of Des Moines. The twister also ripped apart and crushed giant power-generating wind turbines several miles outside of town.

Kimberly Ergish, 33, of Greenfield, and her husband were sifting through the rubble where their home used to be on Wednesday, looking for family photos and other salvageable items. There isn’t much left, she admitted.

“We can’t save most of it,” she said. “But we’ll get what we can get.”

She said she didn’t really understand that her house had been destroyed in a matter of seconds.

“If it weren’t for all the bumps and bruises and aching bones, I would think it didn’t happen,” she said.

Later Tuesday, the storms devastated parts of Illinois and Wisconsin, leaving tens of thousands of homes in both states without power. On Wednesday, the severe weather moved south, and the National Weather Service issued tornado and flash flood warnings for Texas as parts of the state — including Dallas — were under tornado watches.

The National Weather Service said initial investigations indicate at least an EF 3 tornado in Greenfield, but additional damage assessment could lead to a more meaningful classification.

The tornado appeared to have been on the ground for more than 40 miles (64 kilometers), AccuWeather chief meteorologist Jon Porter said. A satellite photo taken by BlackSky Technology shows where the hurricane cut a nearly straight path of destruction through the city, just south of Greenfield’s central square.

The deadly storm came during a historically bad tornado season in the United States, at a time when climate change is increasing the severity of storms around the world. April saw the second-highest number of tornadoes in the United States on record.

According to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, there have been 859 confirmed tornadoes this year through Tuesday, 27 percent more than the U.S. average. The most tornadoes so far have been in Iowa, where 81 confirmed tornadoes have occurred.

On Tuesday alone, the National Weather Service reported receiving 23 tornado reports, most of them in Iowa and one each in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The tornado that devastated parts of Greenfield made the worst-case scenario that weather forecasters had feared come true in Iowa, Porter said.

“Debris was lifted thousands of feet into the air and eventually fell to the ground several counties away from Greenfield. That’s a testament to how intense and deadly this tornado was,” Porter said.

People living as far away as 100 miles from Greenfield posted photos on Facebook of torn family photos, yearbook pages and other items that the tornado had thrown into the sky.

About 90 miles away, in Ames, Iowa, after the storm, Nicole Banner found a yellowed page labeled “This book is the property of the Greenfield Community School District” stuck to her garage door like a Post-It note.

“We just couldn’t believe it had traveled that far,” she said.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the head of FEMA would travel to Iowa on Thursday and that the White House was in contact with state and local authorities. She said they would “pray for those who tragically lost their lives” and wished those injured a “speedy recovery.”

Greenfield’s 25-bed hospital was among the damaged buildings, and at least a dozen injured people had to be transported to other facilities. Hospital officials said in a Facebook post Wednesday that the hospital would remain closed pending further investigation and that full repairs could take weeks or months. The hospital, with help from other providers, has set up an emergency clinic at an elementary school where it plans to offer basic medical care on Thursday, the post said.

Residential streets that on Monday were lined with ancient trees and nicely furnished ranch-style homes were a chaotic jumble of splintered and shattered remains on Wednesday. Many of the basements of the homes where residents were sheltering were exposed, and front yards were littered with belongings from furniture to children’s toys and Christmas decorations.

Dwight Lahey, a 70-year-old retired truck driver, drove from suburban Des Moines to Greenfield to help his 98-year-old mother. She had sought shelter from the tornado in her basement and then walked through her destroyed garage to a nearby supermarket, Lahey said.

“I don’t know how she got through this mess,” he said. His mother was staying in a hotel and wasn’t sure where she would end up if her home was gone, he said.

Roseann Freeland, 67, waited until the last minute to rush into a concrete room in their basement with her husband. Seconds later, her husband opened the door, “and you could just see daylight,” Freeland said. “I just lost it. I just completely lost it.”

Tuesday’s destructive weather also caused flooding and power outages in Nebraska, tornado damage in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and dust storms in Illinois that forced the closure of two highways.

The devastation in Iowa followed days of extreme weather that devastated much of the central part of the country, including Oklahoma and Kansas. Last week, the Houston area was hit by deadly storms that killed at least eight people and left hundreds of thousands of people without power.

– Beck reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press writers Steve Karnowski and Trisha Ahmed in Minneapolis; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; and Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri, contributed to this report.