A powerful tornado ripped through a small Iowa town on Tuesday, killing multiple people, injuring at least a dozen others, and leaving destroyed homes and businesses, shredded trees, smashed cars and debris scattered over a wide area. This created a desolate landscape.
The tornado destroyed much of Greenfield, a town of about 2,000 people about 55 miles southwest of Des Moines, in one day, and spawned multiple tornadoes, large hail and heavy rain in multiple states.
“The fatality has been confirmed,” Iowa State Police Sergeant Alex Dinkler said at a news conference Tuesday night. Sergeant Dinkla said authorities were still tallying the death toll, but believed they had accounted for all residents of the town.
Dinkla said there was widespread damage in Greenfield, including to a small local hospital, and at least a dozen people were injured. Patients there had to be transferred to other facilities in nearby cities.
The Adair County Health System said in a Facebook post Tuesday night that it has set up a triage center at Greenfield High School and that people needing medical attention should go there.
Authorities said residents would only be allowed into Greenfield until Wednesday morning, and media were ordered to leave the city on Tuesday night.
In the storm’s aftermath, parts of Greenfield appeared devastated. Piles of broken trees, branches, car parts and other debris littered the area where homes once stood.
Cars lay broken and crooked, and damaged houses stood diagonally against the gray, cloudy sky. The trees were standing with few branches or leaves–barely.
Residents helped each other remove furniture and other belongings from piles of rubble and barely standing houses.
Rogue Paxton said he took shelter in his home’s basement as the storm passed through. He told WOI-TV he thought his home was lost, but his family was lucky.
“But others don’t, like my brother Cody, his house was just wiped clean,” Paxton said. “And you see all the people here helping each other. … Everything’s going to be okay because we have each other, but it’s going to be really, really tough. It’s a mess.”
Multiple tornadoes were reported across the state, and several 250-foot-tall wind turbines were believed to be destroyed in southwest Iowa.
Several turbines caught fire, and smoke billowed into the air and continued to smolder for hours.
Wind farms are built to withstand tornadoes, hurricanes, and other powerful winds. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the turbines are designed to shut down when wind speeds exceed a certain threshold, typically around 55 miles per hour. It also locks and feathers the blades and rotates them into the wind to minimize strain.
The town describes itself as a place where tree-lined avenues precede the storm, “fireworks go off and illuminations twinkle” on special holidays, and people greet you with a friendly wave as you walk by. . Greenfield also bills itself as a “great place to grow,” and prides itself on being a town where business owners know your name and neighbors help neighbors, according to its visitor page. .
Mary Long, owner of Long’s Market in downtown Greenfield, said her store in the area’s historic town square weathered the storm with little damage. Long said she saw widespread damage on the east and south sides of town.
“I heard the proverbial freight train roar, and then it was over in a flash,” she said.
Camille Blair said the Greenfield Chamber of Commerce office where she works closed around 2 p.m. before the storm. She emerged from her home, where she described extensive damage and scattered debris.
“We know that some homes have pretty significant roof damage and need completely new roofs,” she said, “and from my house, I can see the road heading straight for it.”
In southwestern Iowa, video posted on social media showed a tornado forming just northwest of Red Oak.
Further east and north, the National Weather Service issued multiple tornado warnings for areas near the towns of Griswold, Corning, Fontanelle and Guthrie Center.
Iowa was already bracing for severe weather after the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center announced severe thunderstorms with the possibility of strong tornadoes were likely across much of the state.
Des Moines Public Schools ended classes two hours early and canceled all evening activities ahead of the storm.
Storm and tornado warnings were in place in Wisconsin late Tuesday evening and into the night, with warnings also issued for the state capital, Madison.
Early in the day, residents on Omaha, Nebraska’s west side woke up to blaring sirens and widespread power outages as heavy rain, high winds and large hail pounded the area.
The flood flooded the basement and submerged the car. TV station KETV It showed firefighters arriving to rescue people from the vehicle.
In Illinois, authorities were forced to close two interstate highways due to poor visibility due to a dust storm. Wind gusts of 35 to 45 mph hit the McLean area, said National Weather Service meteorologist Chuck Shafer.
“Visibility is lost at times,” state police posted on social media platform X.
The storm came after several days of extreme weather that battered much of the central U.S., with high winds, large hail and tornadoes hitting parts of Oklahoma and Kansas late Sunday, damaging a home and injuring two people in Oklahoma.
Another storm ripped through Colorado and western Nebraska on Monday night, blanketing the city of Yuma, Colorado, with hail the size of baseballs and golf balls and turning roads into rivers of water and ice. Front-end loaders were used to move the half-foot-deep hail on Tuesday.
Last week, severe storms battered the Houston, Texas area, killing at least eight people.
Thursday’s storms knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people for days, leaving Texans in the dark and without air conditioning in hot, humid weather.
The death total was raised from seven on Tuesday to include a man who died of carbon monoxide poisoning while running a generator after the power went out.
The hurricane’s strong winds reduced businesses and other buildings to rubble and shattered glass on downtown skyscrapers.
Bob Oravec, chief forecaster for the National Weather Service, said Tuesday’s storm is expected to bring similar strong winds, heavy rain and large hail to parts of Minnesota and northern Missouri.
He said the weather is expected to turn south on Wednesday, bringing more severe weather to parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and southern Missouri.
