{"id":42814,"date":"2024-05-24T06:59:10","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T06:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=42814"},"modified":"2026-07-05T17:17:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T17:17:50","slug":"more-bad-weather-hits-iowa-destroyed-many-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2024\/05\/24\/more-bad-weather-hits-iowa-destroyed-many-homes\/","title":{"rendered":"More bad weather hits Iowa destroyed many homes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For block after block through the small city of Greenfield, Iowa, the destructive power of a tornado that ripped apart more than 100 homes in just one minute is evident in the muddy, shattered mess left behind.\u00a0
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All along the mile-long swath Thursday was the deafening clamor of heavy equipment scooping up the splintered homes, smashed vehicles and shredded trees. But on either side of that path, picturesque houses and lawns seem untouched, and one might be hard-pressed to believe a twister packing peak winds of 175-185 mph (109-115 kph) had ravaged the community of 2,000, killing four people and injuring at least 35.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 202 homes were destroyed by a series of tornadoes<\/strong> that raked the state on Tuesday, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said Thursday at a news conference. Most were in and around Greenfield. The count does not include businesses or other buildings destroyed or damaged, like Greenfield\u2019s 25-bed hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The havoc spun by the tornado now shows on the faces of people still processing how quickly homes and lives were shattered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among those killed were Dean and Pam Wiggins, said their grandson Tom Wiggins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, Tom Wiggins tried to find any of his grandparents\u2019 mementos that remained after the tornado demolished their home, leaving little more than its foundation. He described them as \u201cincredibly loved by not only our family but the entire town.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not far away, Bill Yount, 64, also was cleaning up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like somebody took a bomb,\u201d said Yount, gesturing to the land \u2014 covered with wood, debris, trees stripped of their leaves, heavy machinery and equipment to clean up the mess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also surveying the damage was 80-year-old Edith Schaecher, who was briefly trapped in her collapsed house with her daughter until neighbors helped them out. They sought shelter in a basement concrete shower, holding pillows over their heads to protect from the falling debris. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was over within probably 30 seconds,\u201d she said, destroying the home where she had lived for 47 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schaecher\u2019s neighbor, Joan Mitchell, was with her 57-year-old son in the home she\u2019d lived in for 10 years when the tornado roared through. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She had ignored the tornado warnings \u2014 until she was knocked to the floor and two recliners flew on top of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI kept praying and praying, and after that I started hollering, \u2018Help! Help! Help!\u2019\u201d Mitchell recalled. Both she and her son survived with bumps and bruises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The governor praised the Federal Emergency Management Agency\u2019s response on Thursday as she sought a disaster declaration for multiple counties. After surveying Tuesday\u2019s destruction, the National Weather Service determined that three separate powerful tornados carved paths totaling 130 miles (209.21 kilometers) across Iowa, according to Donna Dubberke, the meteorologist in charge in Des Moines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colton Newbury, 24, was working in Des Moines when the twister hit, nearly 60 miles (97 kilometers) away from his wife and 10-month-old daughter at their home in Greenfield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He rushed back only to find their home was \u201ca hole in the ground,\u201d he said. His wife hadn\u2019t heard the sirens. Newbury said his cousin ran out to get his wife and baby, and they rode out the tornado in the cousin\u2019s basement. The winds pulled entire homes away, he said: \u201cAbout every house on the block, just foundations left.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still more severe weather was moving across the Midwest. The weather service\u2019s Storm Prediction Center showed an enhanced severe storm risk late Thursday into Friday morning for much of Nebraska and western Iowa, including areas where tornadoes hit Iowa and hurricane-force winds, large hail and torrential rain flooded streets and basements in Nebraska. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This latest band of severe weather \u2014 including possible tornadoes \u2014 will hit Iowa \u201cwhen people are sleeping,\u201dwarned National Weather Service meteorologist Andrew Ansorge of Des Moines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause of the damage already there, it won\u2019t take much wind to inflict even more damage on these homes,\u201d Ansorge said. \u201cIt\u2019s just a bad deal all the way around.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tornado was on the ground for nearly an hour in southwestern Oklahoma on Thursday evening, the National Weather Service said. There were reports of some homes damaged, but no injuries, said meteorologist Jennifer Thompson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The service had also received reports of very large hail \u2014 some the size of baseballs \u2014 while flash flooding occurred after 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 centimeters) of rain fell along the path of the storm over about a three-hour period, Thompson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The weather service will have to investigate to determine how powerful the tornado was and for what distance it was on the ground, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More severe weather also could hit Saturday and Sunday in storm-damaged parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. An emergency was declared in Temple, Texas, after powerful storms ripped through the city of more than 90,000. Thousands lost power, Thursday\u2019s classes were canceled and nearby Fort Cavazos reported debris blocking traffic at the Army installation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Greenfield twister is one of the strongest this year. The National Weather Service identified it Thursday as an EF4 \u2014 the second-most powerful ranking assigned to tornadoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The year\u2019s deadliest tornado previously had been one that killed three people<\/strong> in Logan County, Ohio, on March 14. The Greenfield tornado set a new grim record<\/strong> as it obliterated homes and crumpled massive power-producing wind turbines<\/strong> outside the city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was so destructive that it took authorities more than a day to account for the area\u2019s residents, and Iowa\u2019s Department of Public Safety said the number of injured is likely even higher. Officials haven\u2019t yet released the names of the Greenfield victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fifth person was killed Tuesday about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Greenfield when her car was blown off the road in a tornado, according to the Adams County Sheriff\u2019s Office. Monica Zamarron, 46, died in the crash Tuesday afternoon, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reynolds has requested an expedited presidential disaster declaration for those Iowa counties that sustained significant damage. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell joined her at the news conference in Greenfield and said that her agency will process the request as quickly as possible to get resources \u2014 which could include funding for temporary housing \u2014 to those left without homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a historically busy tornado season in the U.S., in an era when climate change<\/strong> is heightening the severity of storms around the world. April had the country\u2019s second-highest number of tornadoes<\/strong> on record. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through Tuesday, 859 tornadoes had been confirmed this year, 27% more than the U.S. sees on average, according to NOAA\u2019s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. Iowa has recorded the most, with 81 confirmed twisters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For block after block through the small city of Greenfield, Iowa, the destructive power of a tornado that ripped apart more than 100 homes in just one minute is evident in the muddy, shattered mess left behind.\u00a0 All along the mile-long swath Thursday was the deafening clamor of heavy equipment scooping up the splintered homes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":42816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8217,9252,11941,5443,13175,9331,3862,8193,2808,5183,8116,5241,5455,5787,12429,10598,6825,11715,1407,11111,11525,10340,9515,10454,8029,10634,10311,4766,9534,599,11377,10716,5807,7972,5355,6681,6261,5594,5353,10304,9539,9085,36,594],"class_list":["post-42814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-army","tag-bed","tag-bill","tag-bomb","tag-car","tag-city","tag-climate-change","tag-crash","tag-daughter","tag-debris","tag-destruction","tag-died","tag-family","tag-flood","tag-havoc","tag-homes","tag-hospital","tag-housing","tag-hurricane","tag-injured","tag-injuries","tag-iowa","tag-killed","tag-killing","tag-land","tag-lost","tag-midwest","tag-national-weather-service","tag-ohio","tag-oklahoma","tag-presidential","tag-rain","tag-risk","tag-storm","tag-texas","tag-tornado","tag-tornadoes","tag-traffic","tag-trapped","tag-trees","tag-victims","tag-weather","tag-world","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42817,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42814\/revisions\/42817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}