GREENFIELD
\nFive people died and at least 35 were hurt as powerful tornadoes ripped through Iowa, with one carving a path of destruction through the small city of Greenfield, officials said Wednesday.
\nThe Iowa Department of Public Safety said Tuesday\u2019s tornadoes killed four people in the Greenfield area, and local officials said a fifth person \u2014 a woman whose car was swept away in the wind \u2014 was killed by a twister about 25 miles (40 kilometers) away. Officials did not release the names of the victims because they were still notifying relatives.
\nThe Iowa Department of Public Safety said Wednesday it\u2019s believed that the number of people injured is likely higher.
\nThe Greenfield tornado left a wide swath of obliterated homes, splintered trees and crumpled cars in the town of 2,000 about 55 miles (88.5 kilometers) southwest of Des Moines. The twister also ripped apart and crumpled massive power-producing wind turbines several miles outside the city.
\nGreenfield resident Kimberly Ergish, 33, and her husband dug through the debris field Wednesday that used to be their home, looking for family photos and other salvageable items. There wasn\u2019t much left, she acknowledged.
\n\u201cMost of it we can\u2019t save,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we\u2019re going to get what we can.\u201d
\nThe reality of having her house destroyed in seconds hasn\u2019t really set in, she said.
\n\u201cIf it weren\u2019t for all the bumps and bruises and the achy bones, I would think that it didn\u2019t happen,\u201d she said.
\nTuesday\u2019s storms also pummeled parts of Illinois and Wisconsin, knocking out power to tens of thousands of customers in the two states. The severe weather turned south on Wednesday, and the National Weather Service was issuing tornado and flash flood warnings in Texas as parts of the state \u2014 including Dallas \u2014 were under a tornado watch.
\nThe National Weather Service said initial surveys indicated at least an EF-3 tornado in Greenfield, but additional damage assessment could lead to a more powerful ranking.
\nThe tornado appeared to have been on the ground for more than 40 miles (64 kilometers), AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter said. A satellite photo taken by a BlackSky Technology shows where the twister gouged a nearly straight path of destruction through the town, just south of Greenfield\u2019s center square.
\nThe deadly twister was spawned during a historically bad season for tornadoes in the US, at a time when climate change is heightening the severity of storms around the world. April had the second-highest number of tornadoes on record in the country.
\nThrough Tuesday, there have been 859 confirmed tornadoes this year, 27 percent more than the US sees on average, according to NOAA\u2019s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. So far, Iowa\u2019s had the most, with 81 confirmed twisters.
\nOn Tuesday alone, the National Weather Service said it received 23 tornado reports, with most in Iowa and one each in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
\nThe tornado that decimated parts of Greenfield brought to life the worst case scenario in Iowa that weather forecasters had feared, Porter said.
\n\u201cDebris was lifted thousands of feet in the air and ended up falling to the ground several counties away from Greenfield. That\u2019s evidence of just how intense and deadly this tornado was,\u201d Porter said.
\nPeople as far as 100 miles (160 kilometers) away from Greenfield posted photos on Facebook of ripped family photos, yearbook pages and other items that were lifted into the sky by the tornado.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GREENFIELD Five people died and at least 35 were hurt as powerful tornadoes ripped through Iowa, with one carving a path of destruction through the small city of Greenfield, officials said Wednesday. The Iowa Department of Public Safety said Tuesday\u2019s tornadoes killed four people in the Greenfield area, and local officials said a fifth person […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-408961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n