Rare EF5 Tornado Destroys Parkersburg, IA

The National Weather Service conducted a site survey of the damage sustained in Parkersburg, IA from a tornado that struck the area Sunday evening, and confirmed that it was a rare EF5, the highest measure on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.  The NWS states that top wind speeds from the tornado were estimated to be 205 MPH.  That’s about the top speed of a car running in a NASCAR race.  Now imagine the car is indestructible, is one mile wide, and travels 43 miles.  That’s what hit Parkersburg and several other neighboring towns.  

To get an idea of what 205 MPH winds can do, consider what the rescue workers in the picture below have to deal with.  Houses are totally obliterated down to their foundations.  Cars are flipped over.  Huge trees are stripped bare, or pulled out of the ground.

Seven fatalities have been confirmed so far.  Another 50 people remain hospitalized.  An article in the Des Moines Register described the damage:

State officials estimated that 222 homes and 21 businesses were destroyed by the mile-wide tornado; another 408 homes sustained some damage.

The roof of Aplington-Parkersburg High School was torn off. The Parkersburg City Hall was destroyed. From the air, it appeared as if a giant lawn mower had shredded the southern third of the town.

Cars were flipped upside-down. A boat trailer was propped against a house. A semi-trailer was wrapped around its cab. A piano, its entrails splayed, was stuffed against a tree.

Residents emerged from their basements to a stunning scene:

Barb Johnson, 48, a human resources administrator at Nestle, and her husband, Jason, 39, a manufacturing supervisor, lived next door to Richard and Ethel Mulder, who were killed.

Johnson said the air was eerily silent at 5 p.m. “No birds, nothing,” she said. “Then it was so loud it was deafening. Then boom, boom, boom, boom and it was quiet again.”

The tornado sucked away every above-ground portion of the Johnsons’ and the Mulders’ houses, including the subfloor on the first level.

(snip)

Johnson said she has no idea what happened to her Chevy Tahoe, which had been parked inside their enclosed garage.

“It’s down there,” said her son, Mike, 26, gesturing over the hillside.

An overhead view of a Parkersburg neighborhood shows how complete the destruction was:

One resident still managed to commemorate Memorial Day, amid the destruction that will mark this holiday for the rest of their lives:

The loss of life could have been much worse, as noted by Iowa Gov. Chet Culver:

The governor said in a press conference that Parkersburg city employees installed an additional siren on the city’s south side 10 days before the storm. That act, Culver said, reduced the number of fatalities. He called it a blessing, urging city officials across the state to evaluate their own systems.

The area has been designated both a state and a federal disaster area.  Homeless residents are being cared for in local shelters (mostly school gymnasiums and motels) in surrounding towns.  The Iowa National Guard has 165 members on the scene so far to assist with cleanup efforts.  But the residents of Parkersburg face a staggering challenge to clean up and rebuild their town.