STORY: :: Residents begin cleaning up after tornado hits this Iowa town
:: May 23, 2024
:: Greenfield, Iowa
:: Victoria Turner, resident
“This was my house. And we were, this was the basement. And he took my house and threw it right there. This is what’s left of my house.”
:: Jon Crawford, store owner
“Right now, these young people here are trying to help me dig things up. Since I had a shop here, there are still a lot of things down there that aren’t broken.”
“But something like this, you know, takes time to clean everything up. It’s going to take many years for this town to get back to normal. We have to plant new trees. We’ll be, I’ll be dead and gone before everything is normal.”
Authorities were still assessing the full extent of the property damage in Greenfield, a community of 3,000 people about 60 miles southwest of Des Moines, the state capital.
The death toll was announced by the Iowa Department of Public Safety after rescuers searched debris fields left by the deadly tornado for people who might be trapped in the wreckage.
The tornado that touched down in Greenfield was among a swarm of tornadoes reported in southwest Iowa Tuesday afternoon and evening. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said preliminary reports counted 23 potential tornadoes, mostly in Iowa.
