At least four people were killed and 35 others wounded after a tornado hit a small town in Iowa on Tuesday, causing a lot of damage, government officials said Wednesday.
The Iowa Department of Public Safety said that they are still gathering information from around the devastated town as more people might be injured.
The tornado raged through the Iowa state Tuesday afternoon. It destroyed many homes, trees, and cars in Greenfield, a town with 2,000 people. The tornado also wrecked big wind turbines near the town. Now, rescue teams are searching for people under mounds of huge debris to make sure nobody else is stuck.
“It’s still a search mission as far as we’re looking to be sure all residents are accounted for,” said Iowa State Patrol Sgt. Alex Dinkla.
People looked for their valuables through the debris of their houses. A Greenfield resident Kimberly Ergish and her husband seemed distraught while standing on the debris field that used to be their home. They looked for family photos and other salvageable items however, there was not much left.
“Most of it we can’t save," she said. "But we’re going to get what we can.”
“If it weren’t for all the bumps and bruises and the achy bones, I would think that it didn’t happen,” she said.
A woman died in a car accident near Corning, Iowa. The Adams County Sheriff’s office said her vehicle got blown off the road. Her name and age haven't been shared yet. The National Weather Service got reports of 23 tornadoes on Tuesday. Most of them were in Iowa, and there was one each in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
“Debris was lifted thousands of feet in the air and ended up falling to the ground several counties away from Greenfield. That’s evidence of just how intense and deadly this tornado was," AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter said.