Video: At least 5 dead and 35 injured in tornadoes in the US state of Iowa

At least five people died and at least 35 were injured when violent tornadoes swept through the US state of Iowa. One of them left a trail of destruction through the small town 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 flew off the road, was about 25 Killed miles away by a tornado. Monica Zamarron, 46, died in the accident on Tuesday afternoon. The Iowa Department of Public Safety said Wednesday it believes the number of injuries is likely higher.

Greenfield Tornado

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 southwest of Des Moines. The twister also ripped apart and crushed giant power-generating wind turbines several miles outside of town.

Tuesday’s storms also hit parts of Illinois and Wisconsin, leaving tens of thousands of homes in both states without power. On Wednesday, 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 surveys indicate at least one EF-3 tornado in Greenfield, but additional damage assessment could lead to a more meaningful 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 BlackSky Technology shows where the twister cut a nearly straight path of destruction through the city, just south of Greenfield’s central square.

The deadly tornado came during a historically bad tornado season in the U.S., 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 U.S. on record. As of Tuesday, there have been 859 confirmed tornadoes this year, 27% more than the U.S. average, according to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. Iowa has had the most to date, with 81 confirmed tornadoes.

On Tuesday alone, the National Weather Service said it received 23 tornado reports, most of them 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 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 as far as 100 miles from Greenfield posted photos on Facebook of torn family photos, yearbook pages and other items lifted into the sky by the tornado. About 90 miles away, in Ames, Iowa, 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 after the storm passed. “We just could.” “I don’t think it traveled that far,” she said.

Greenfield’s 25-bed hospital was among the buildings damaged, and at least a dozen injured people had to be transferred to other facilities. Hospital officials said in a Facebook post Wednesday that the hospital will remain closed until further assessment can be made and that full repairs could take weeks or months. The hospital, with the help of other providers, has set up an emergency room at a primary care elementary school to begin Thursday, the post said.

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 interstates. The devastation in Iowa followed days of extreme weather that ravaged much of the middle 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 without power.