UPDATED 2:00 P.M.
(Reuters) – Rescue teams in Iowa searched through the ruins of homes and buildings in Greenfield on Wednesday, looking for survivors of a deadly tornado that tore through the town the day before.
Authorities were still determining how many people were killed, injured and displaced by the twister in the farming town of 2,000 located about 60 miles (97 km) west of Des Moines, Sergeant Alex Dinkla, a spokesperson with the Iowa State Patrol, told a news conference.
“It is still a search mission as far as we are looking to make sure all residents are accounted for,” he said. “When we have this many homes that have been destroyed, fully demolished, we want to make sure every person is accounted for.”
Images from Greenfield showed a path of utter destruction, with homes reduced to splinters, debris strewn everywhere and several large wind turbines toppled.
“It’s horrific. It’s hard to describe,” said Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, who declared a disaster emergency for 15 counties.
The twister that touched down in Greenfield was among a swarm of tornadoes that were reported in southwestern Iowa on Tuesday evening. At least one person, a woman in nearby Adams County, was killed in the storms, the county’s medical examiner said.
Reynolds said state officials were working to send a request for President Joe Biden to approve a disaster declaration in order to get federal assistance for state residents.
Among the buildings damaged in Greenfield was a hospital, forcing authorities to create a makeshift medical care center at the lumberyard and send some of the injured to other area facilities.
State Representative Ray Sorensen said several residents used their own vehicles to transport those who were injured to safety moments after the storm struck.
“We pulled a guy from the rubble and put him on a little makeshift stretcher we made and threw him in the back of a truck,” he said.
Tornadoes along with severe storms packing large hail and damaging winds were likely again on Wednesday across the Southern Plains as well as Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, the National Weather Service warned.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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(Reuters) -A powerful tornado ripped through a small Iowa town on Tuesday, killing multiple people and leaving at least a dozen injured, authorities said.
Images from the town of Greenfield show a path of utter destruction, with homes reduced to splinters, debris strewn everywhere and several large wind turbines toppled.
“This tornado has devastated a good portion of this town,” said Sgt. Alex Dinkla, a spokesperson with the Iowa State Patrol, during an evening press conference in Greenfield.
“We can confirm there have been multiple fatalities with this tornado.”
Dinkla did not provide a death toll, but said it may not be before Wednesday that figures could be provided.
At least a dozen people in Greenfield, a town of about 2,000 people, were injured in the twister, Dinkla said. Because the local hospital sustained damage in the storm, those people had to be transferred to facilities in nearby towns.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said she would visit Greenfield on Wednesday morning.
“While it’s too soon to know the storm’s full impact, answers will come in the hours and days ahead,” Reynolds said in a statement.
The governor said the state would provide its full resources to help the impacted areas recover, and reassured residents that support was in place working to provide shelter, food and water, and restore power to thousands of residents.
“I’ve lived here all my life. I’m just praying that everyone was safe, that everybody’s safe, and nobody got hurt,” Valerie Warrior, a Greenfield resident, told CBS affiliate KCCI TV in an interview, standing near some of the demolished dwellings. “It was scary, very scary.”
Other video showed smashed vehicles and heavy damage to a gasoline station in Greenfield, the county seat of Adair County, which along with adjacent Adams County appeared to have borne the brunt of the Iowa storms in the southwestern corner of the state.
At least one person, a woman in Adams County, was listed as a storm-related fatality, the county’s medical examiner Lisa Brown said. She spoke to Reuters by phone but said she could not yet provide more details.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds declared a “disaster emergency” for 15 counties, including Adair and Adams, allowing state resources to be readily utilized in responding to the storm.
Also in Adams County, at least three wind turbines standing about 25 stories high were nearly snapped in half, with one catching fire, KCCI reported. It said several other wind turbines were damaged in Adair County.
The National Weather Service had issued tornado warnings and severe thunderstorm advisories for much of Iowa and several other Midwestern states on Tuesday, including parts of Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
Earlier in the day, the weather service confirmed at least one tornado over Rollingstone, Minnesota.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Longmont, Colorado, and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, additional reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Editing by Michael Perry and Stephen Coates)
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