On the Tuesday, Iowa was hit by a severe storm and several tornadoes were reported across the state. Even more destructive was one tornado that hit the small town of Greenfield about 60 miles southwest of Des Moines, claiming several lives and leaving more than a dozen people injured.
The tornado struck Greenfield in the afternoon, leaving the town of over 2000 people nearly devastated. Law enforcement agencies of Iowa State reported several fatalities and casualties, with at least twelve people taken to the hospital. The death toll is still unknown and the authorities are still trying to ascertain how many people lost their lives.
Besides Greenfield, other tornadoes occurred in Iowa. More specifically, a “large and dangerous” tornado nearing Fontanelle was reported moving northeast at 60 mph at that time.
A further major storm system posed a threat to over 25 million residents in Nebraska and Michigan. The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center has indicated possible tornadoes, heavy rains, hail and gusting winds. As described by AccuWeather, severe thunderstorms are likely in places stretching from northern Missouri to southern Wisconsin, similar to the outbreak of the past April 26 that brought over 100 tornadoes.
Tornado watches were out by Tuesday afternoon for eastern Nebraska, most of Iowa and portions of Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Much of Iowa was under a “particularly dangerous situation” tornado watch indicating rather favorable conditions for the formation of tornadoes.At least seven counties in Iowa were affected by road flooding due to severe thunderstorms. Mason City in Cerro Gordo County reported 3. Heavy rain of 5 inches occurs and there was flooding in Bremer and Grundy counties. They predicted that the storm system would be most intense in the afternoon and evening, with powerful supercells in the Missouri and Mississippi valleys and the Lake Michigan region.
This week there were several storms in the central part of the USA which caused the formation of tornadoes and large hail. There were possible tornadoes in Colorado on Monday and there was hardly any sign of damage in Nebraska. The storms that occurred over the weekend injured four people in Oklahoma, and many constructions in the Plains region were damaged.
People of those towns especially Greenfield began to clear the wreckage and survey the losses on Tuesday night. From the angle that the video was taken from the sky, what was realized was that houses were wrecked, vehicles flipped over, trees pulled from the ground and power cables cut. In addition to searching for and rescuing individuals, the authorities prohibited the entry and exit of vehicles into Greenfield. Adair County was hit and a portion of a local hospital had to be closed down and patients had to be shuttled to other hospitals.
The curfew in Greenfield was from 10 p. m. to 7 a. m. on Wednesday. MidAmerican Energy noted that some of the wind turbines located in Adair County were brought down by the tornado and there were clips of the calamity.
Among the wreckage, the Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has issued the disaster emergency in 15 counties. Carl and Valerie Faust, who lived in Greenfield, also became one of the victims of the catastrophe – their house was completely destroyed, but they were able to escape to the basement in time.
In Wisconsin, the storm was translated into the complete outage of electricity to more than 80,000 homes and businesses in the region. Several storms struck the state, some with velocities measured at 80 mph, and many counties remained under tornado watches until midnight. The first tornado formed near Abbotsford and was heading northeast at 80 mph while the second formed near Spring Green and led to a warning from the National Weather Service.
The storm system was predicted to move into southern Canada by Wednesday morning. Still, a cold front that followed it was expected to linger across the southern Plains to produce the next round of storms. The National Weather Service forecasted that the thunderstorms in the mid-Mississippi Valley would persist by Wednesday night.
Thursday storms that were expected to occur constantly could produce hail and tornadoes in Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and some parts of Texas. The central Plains and mid-Atlantic regions were also at the risk of experiencing severe thunderstorms.
This spring has been rather active, with over 830 preliminary tornado reports so far, compared to 626 in a more typical year, as reported by AccuWeather.
At the same time, storms in Houston were followed by severe damages and blackouts due to a heat wave. Another person died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator resulting from power failures. Schools continued to be shut down, while people were informed about possible presence of debris and other destroyed structures. The heat index was predicted to rise up to 105 degrees, and the restoration of electricity remained ongoing, with more than 136,000 customers remaining without electricity as of Tuesday afternoon.
