DES MOINES, Iowa — Half of this small town lay in ruins or heavily damaged Monday following a deadly tornado that 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."
Crews were beginning to search Monday morning through the rubble left by tornadoes that tore through the United States' midsection, killing seven people.
Bob Haylock, mayor of Parkersburg, Iowa, said a Sunday afternoon tornado destroyed roughly one-third of his town of about 1,000 people. The number of dead and injured would have been higher if not for warning sirens that sounded early enough to give residents time to seek shelter.
"Without that, we would have a tremendous amount of injuries and loss of life," Haylock said. "People were down in their basements and waiting it out."
Haylock said most of those who died were in basements. All were adults, he said.
The number killed in Iowa, 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.
Four of those killed were from Parkersburg and two were from the nearby town of New Hartford, Voorhees said. At least 50 injuries were reported.
Voorhees said about 200 people took shelter in an elementary school Sunday night. They were allowed to return to the town Monday morning but will have to leave by 8 p.m.
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