GREENFIELD, Iowa — Five people were killed and at least 35 injured when powerful tornadoes ripped through Iowa on Tuesday, with one cutting a path of destruction through the city of Greenfield, authorities said.
The Iowa Department of Public Safety said Wednesday that four people have died in the Greenfield area. Authorities have not released the names of those killed in the storm because they were still notifying relatives.
The figures released Wednesday bring the total number of deaths to five, after authorities earlier announced that a woman in a vehicle had been killed by a tornado about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Greenfield. The Iowa Department of Public Safety said Wednesday it believes the number of people injured is likely higher.
The Greenfield tornado left a wide swath of destroyed homes, broken trees and crushed cars in the town of 2,000, about 55 miles (88.5 kilometers) southwest of Des Moines. The twister also destroyed and destroyed huge power-producing wind turbines several miles outside the city.
Greenfield resident Kimberly Ergish, 33, and her husband on Wednesday dug through the debris field that used to be their home, looking for family photos and other salvageable items. There wasn’t much left, she acknowledged.
“Most of it we can’t save,” she said. “But we’ll get what we can.”
The reality of having your home destroyed in seconds hasn’t yet set in, she said.
“If it weren’t for all the swelling and bruising and bone pain, I would think it didn’t happen,” she said.
Later on Tuesday, storms hit parts of Illinois and Wisconsin, knocking out power to tens of thousands of customers in both states. Severe weather worsened Wednesday, and the National Weather Service was issuing tornado and flash flood warnings in Texas while parts of the state — including Dallas — were under a tornado watch.
The National Weather Service said initial surveys indicated at least one EF-3 tornado in Greenfield, but further damage assessment could lead to a more powerful rating.
The tornado appeared to be on the ground more than 40 miles away, said AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter. A satellite photo taken by BlackSky Technology shows where the tornado cut a nearly straight path of destruction through the city, just south of Greenfield’s central square.
The deadly tornado was spawned during a historically bad season for tornadoes in the US, at a time when climate change is increasing the severity of storms around the world. April had the second highest number of tornadoes ever recorded in the country.
As of 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 has had the most, with 81 confirmed twisters.
On Tuesday alone, the National Weather Service said it received 23 reports of tornadoes, 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 forecasters had feared, Porter said.
“The debris was lifted thousands of feet into the air and ended up falling to the ground several counties away from Greenfield. This is a testament to how intense and deadly this tornado was,” Porter said.
People as far as 100 miles away from Greenfield posted to Facebook torn up 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 that said “This book is the property of the Greenfield Community School District” taped to her garage door like a Post-it note after the storm passed. .
“We just couldn’t believe he had traveled so far,” she said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the FEMA administrator would go to Iowa on Thursday and that the White House was in contact with state and local officials. She said they were “praying for those who tragically lost their lives” and wished those injured a “speedy recovery”.
The 25-bed Greenfield hospital was among the damaged buildings and at least a dozen injured people 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 assessed and that full repairs could take weeks or months. The hospital, with the help of other providers, has set up an urgent care clinic at an elementary school with primary care services that will begin Thursday, the post said.
Residential streets that on Monday were lined with old-growth trees and well-decorated ranch-style homes were a chaotic mess of splintered and destroyed remains on Wednesday. Many of the basements of the homes where residents were sheltering were exposed and the backyards were full of 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 took refuge from the tornado in her basement and then walked out through the destroyed garage to a nearby convenience store, Lahey said.
“I don’t know how she got through this mess,” he said. Her mother was staying in a hotel, not knowing where she would end up without her home, he said.
Roseann Freeland, 67, waited until the last minute to rush with her husband to a concrete room in their basement. Seconds later, her husband opened the door “and you could see daylight,” Freeland said. “I just lost control. I just totally 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 interstate highways.
The devastation in Iowa followed days of extreme weather that devastated much of the central region of the country, including Oklahoma and Kansas. Last week, deadly storms ripped through the Houston area, killing at least eight people and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people.
—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.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
