Town overwhelmed by twisters' wreckage
PARKERSBURG, Iowa (AP) - May 27, 2008 Several yards away, a makeshift sign was placed amid the rubble
to remind Everts and others that they were in Russell Circle, once
their street.
"We have no place yet," the 85-year-old said. "We were trying
to get it cleaned up and save the stuff that's precious to us."
Everts was one of hundreds of people who spent Monday picking up
what was left of their lives after a tornado ripped apart a stretch
of northern Iowa a day earlier, killing six people, four of them in
Parkersburg and two others in nearby New Hartford. In neighboring
Minnesota, a child was killed by violent weather in a suburb of St.
Paul.
"You really are overwhelmed when you see it," Iowa Gov. Chet
Culver said Monday after touring the Parkersburg area. "You can't
imagine this kind of devastation, homes completely gone. And to see
people trying to sort through their belongings is very difficult."
Rescuers continued picking through the wreckage in search of
possible victims, but officials said they were hopeful no one else
would be found. In addition to those killed, about 70 people were
injured, including two in critical condition.
The damage in this town of about 1,000 was staggering: 222 homes
destroyed, 21 businesses destroyed and more than 400 homes damaged.
Among the buildings destroyed were the city hall, the high school
and the town's sole grocery store and gas station.
"There's so much hurt here, I don't know where to start," said
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who owns a farm near New Hartford.
Warning sirens sounded early enough to give residents time to
seek shelter, Parkersburg Mayor Bob Haylock said.
"Without that, we would have a tremendous amount of injuries
and loss of life," Haylock said. "People were down in their
basements and waiting it out."
However, Haylock said most of those killed in Parkersburg were
in basements. All were adults, he said.
Diane Goodrich rode out the storm in her basement with her
husband and three neighbors.
"The noise was just unbelievable," Goodrich said Monday as she
searched through the ruins of her home. "Our ears were popping. We
could hear trees flying over us. We could hear every piece of
furniture that left the house."
The number killed initially was reported as seven but was
dropped to six Monday after a better accounting of residents, said
Bret Voorhees, bureau chief of Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency
Management. Culver issued a disaster proclamation for four
counties.
Sunday's storm followed an east-to-west path just a few miles
north of the Waterloo area. It hit Parkersburg, New Hartford and
then Dunkerton, about 50 miles east of Parkersburg. About 80 miles
to the southwest, the Des Moines area had heavy rain and wind that
gusted to 70 mph.
North of St. Paul, Minn., the tornado that struck the town of
Hugo on Sunday killed 2-year-old Nathaniel Prindle and injured his
young sister, Washington County officials said. The boy's father
was hospitalized in stable condition, while his 4-year-old sister
was in critical condition, and his mother was released after
treatment, authorities said.
Marvin Miller found Nathaniel's parents, his neighbors, trapped
in the debris of their home.
"They just kept screaming `My children, my children!' Miller
said Monday.
The National Weather Service confirmed that the storm was a
tornado. The American Red Cross said 27 homes were destroyed and 16
had major damage. Seventy-five more had minor damage.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty declared a state of emergency in
Washington County, directing state agencies to help local
governments as they recover from the storm, and said investigators
were working to determine if the damage was significant enough
trigger federal aid.
The storms came after several days of violent weather elsewhere
across the nation. Storms killed at least two people Friday in
Kansas, which was hit with tornadoes and hail Monday. Rural
Oklahoma was battered Saturday, and another round of severe weather
there on Monday produced at least one tornado in Kay County. There
were no immediate reports of damage or injuries in either state
from the latest storms.
About 100 people have been killed by U.S. twisters so far this
year, the worst toll in a decade, according to the weather service,
and the danger has not passed yet. Tornado season typically peaks
in the spring and early summer, then again in the late fall.
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Associated Press writer Joshua Freed in Hugo, Minn., contributed
to this report.