Tornado Outbreak – For four consecutive days, residents of the Midwest and Great Plains have been preparing for severe tornado weather. This comes after at least 20 tornadoes swept through three states, resulting in multiple fatalities in Iowa, officials reported.
Severe weather is expected to move south and east, stretching from New York State to Texas on Wednesday. In Greenfield, Iowa, the town was left devastated, with about half of it destroyed, according to officials.
A “devastating” tornado struck Greenfield, located southwest of Des Moines, causing deaths and injuries in the area, said Sgt. Alex Dinkla of the Iowa State Patrol during a Tuesday night news conference.
“It’s gut-wrenching. It’s horrific. The devastation is hard to describe until you see it,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds stated at a news conference in Greenfield on Wednesday morning.
Reynolds mentioned that search-and-rescue crews are still looking for victims.
As of Wednesday morning, the number of casualties and the extent of the damage were still being determined.
“This is a search-and-rescue mission and it will continue throughout the day,” Reynolds said, emphasizing the importance of accurate information.
She noted that much of Greenfield was flattened.
When asked about the damage to homes in Greenfield and across the state, Reynolds replied, “That would be way underestimating.”
The Adair County Memorial Hospital, which serves Greenfield, sustained tornado damage but managed to treat patients and transport some to nearby hospitals for further care, according to Dinkla.
State Rep. Ray Sorensen, who represents Greenfield, was painting at a church when the tornado hit around 3 p.m. Tuesday. He rushed into town to find numerous homes damaged or demolished and nearly all the historic trees in Greenfield uprooted and stripped of limbs.
“It’s a completely different town now,” Sorensen said.
Despite the devastation, when Sorensen arrived, people were already clearing the streets of debris to make way for emergency vehicles and assisting the injured at a makeshift triage center set up at a lumber yard.
“Everybody became little makeshift ambulances,” Sorensen described. “We pulled a guy from the rubble, made a stretcher, and transported him in a truck to the lumber yard, which served as a makeshift hospital.”
On Tuesday, 329 severe storms were reported across the nation’s midsection, from Texas to Michigan and even up to New England. At least 20 tornadoes were confirmed in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, with most occurring in Iowa.
More severe weather is anticipated. The highest risk for tornadoes, damaging winds, and large hail will be in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana, affecting major cities such as Dallas, Waco, Abilene, Little Rock, and Shreveport.
Some damaging winds could also hit Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Rochester, New York.
Severe weather is expected to continue into Thursday, impacting large parts of the Heartland and the South from South Dakota to Texas and east to Tennessee as the Memorial Day weekend approaches.
On Tuesday, the National Weather Service issued tornado watches for parts of Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Missouri, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
Nearly the entire state of Iowa was under a “Particularly Dangerous Situation,” with several tornado warnings issued before a funnel cloud hit Greenfield.
Gov. Reynolds authorized a disaster emergency proclamation for 15 counties across the state. On Wednesday, she announced that the state would seek federal disaster relief from President Joe Biden.
The affected counties include Adair, Adams, Cass, Clay, Hardin, Harrison, Jasper, Kossuth, Marshall, Montgomery, Page, Palo Alto, Pottawattamie, Tama, and Warren.
Several videos obtained by ABC affiliate WOI-DT in Des Moines captured a large funnel cloud on the ground in Greenfield.
WOI reporter Dana Searles, surveying the damage in Des Moines, said, “This small community has a big chunk destroyed, but about half of it is still intact. From what I’ve seen, I’d estimate that maybe 75% of it is near to the ground right now.”
In Yuma, northeast Colorado, hail ranging from golf ball to softball size pelted the area, damaging cars and buildings. At one point, the hail was so deep that multiple vehicles got stuck, JJ Unger, a volunteer Yuma firefighter, told ABC News.
“It was like a blizzard hitting for a half hour because of the hail,” Unger said. “That’s the longest I’ve seen it hail like that.”