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Storms In Midwest On Sunday Killed 7

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The Associated Press

Published: May 27, 2008

PARKERSBURG, Iowa - Half of this small town lay in ruins or heavily damaged Monday after a deadly tornado ripped apart a stretch of northern Iowa.

The Sunday afternoon twister killed six people in Iowa, four of them in Parkersburg and two others in nearby New Hartford. In neighboring Minnesota, a child was killed by violent weather in a suburb of St. Paul.

"You really are overwhelmed when you see it," Iowa Gov. Chet Culver said at a news conference Monday after touring the Parkersburg area. "You can't imagine this kind of devastation, homes completely gone. And, to see people trying to sort through their belongings is very difficult."

Rescuers continued picking through the wreckage in search of possible victims but officials said they were hopeful that no one else remained to be found.

In addition to those killed, about 70 people were injured, two of them critically.

Officials counted 222 homes destroyed, 21 businesses destroyed and more than 400 homes damaged. Among the buildings destroyed were City Hall, the high school and the town's sole grocery store and gas station.

That's about half of the homes in Parkersburg destroyed or severely damaged, said Butler County Sheriff Jason Johnson.

"There's so much hurt here, I don't know where to start," said U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who owns a farm near New Hartford.

The number killed initially was reported as seven but was dropped to six Monday after a better accounting of residents, said Bret Voorhees, bureau chief of Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

The storm struck just after 5 p.m. Sunday, following an east-to-west path just a few miles north of the Waterloo area. It hit Parkersburg, New Hartford and then Dunkerton, about 50 miles east of Parkersburg. About 80 miles to the southwest, the Des Moines area had heavy rain and wind that gusted to 70 mph.

The National Weather Service confirmed Monday that the storm that struck the Minnesota town of Hugo, killing 2-year-old Nathaniel Prindle, was a tornado. The American Red Cross said 27 homes were destroyed and 16 more had major damage. Another 75 had minor damage.

The storms came after three days of violent weather elsewhere across the nation. Storms in Kansas on Friday killed at least two people. Rural Oklahoma was battered Saturday, and another round of severe weather there on Monday produced at least one tornado in Kay County.

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