4 dead and dozens injured in tornado that devastated Iowa town

Central Iowa was in turmoil Wednesday morning after a tornado described by police as “devastating” killed four people and devastated rural communities.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety said four people died and 35 others were injured as a result of the tornado that struck the town of Greenfield, a community of about 2,000 people 40 miles southwest of Des Moines, on Tuesday.

The names of the dead have not been released publicly, Iowa DPS said. The agency also said the number of injured is likely higher and that those numbers reflect only those who were treated in designated care facilities.

Another person was killed in a weather-related car crash in nearby Adams County on Tuesday, police confirmed. The victim was Monica Zamarron, 46.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds declared a state of emergency in 17 counties on Wednesday evening, after the declaration had already been made for 15 counties on Wednesday.

There were 18 tornado warnings across Iowa on Tuesday and one each in Wisconsin and Minnesota, adding to an already exceptionally intense tornado season.

Sergeant Alex Dinkla said at a news conference that at least 12 people were being treated in hospitals — though the city’s Adair County Memorial Hospital was also damaged, forcing first responders to transport victims to facilities elsewhere.

Reynolds declined to disclose the number of injured and dead. At a press conference on Wednesday, he told reporters: “It is still a search and rescue operation and we do not want to spread misinformation.”

Joan Newell, 77, of Greenfield said the tornado sounded like a “train.”

“So I knew I had to go into my basement,” she said.

Newell said she was trapped in her home for about 45 minutes before she was rescued. At one point she could hear people outside, but no one knew she was stuck.

“They didn’t believe I was down there and I kept screaming, ‘I’m here!’ But no one could hear me,” she said.

Her Apple Watch eventually alerted 911 that she had fallen and was trapped.

Newell has lived in the area for decades and has experienced a tornado before. But this one was “ten times worse,” she said.

Maggie Masker’s house was ripped from its foundation, leaving a pile of bricks in the basement where her family would have taken refuge if they had been home during the tornado.

Luckily, Masker was at work, her husband had been helping with the fire department and their two-year-old daughter was at daycare.

“It’s crazy to think about it,” Masker said. “You just think that’s the safe place, but it’s not safe anymore. It never was.”

The risk of severe weather continues into Thursday for around 20 million people from Memphis to New England.

Aerial photos taken late Tuesday from Greenfield showed entire streets in the path of the tornado lying in ruins, with piles of debris strewn between fallen trees and destroyed cars.

A man in nearby Red Oak in Montgomery County filmed a massive funnel cloud moving through the area as sirens blared and heavy rain fell.

A statement from the Montgomery County Department of Emergency Management said multiple confirmed tornadoes damaged at least 28 homes, with damage ranging from “affected” to “destroyed.”

Near Prescott, Iowa, wind turbines were in ruins. And near the town of Nevada, Iowa, winds were strong enough to overturn a semi-truck that had stopped on a highway due to the extreme conditions. There are no reports of casualties.

The situation in Iowa was so serious that the weather service announced it would send three teams from its office in Des Moines to assess the tornado damage, with results expected Wednesday evening.

Elsewhere in Colorado, large hailstones tore off the facades of buildings and shattered car windows – Denver’s NBC affiliate KUSA reported that the hail was at times the size of a baseball.

In Omaha, Nebraska, cars were swept away by severe flooding with 4 to 8 inches of rainfall, leaving some cars stranded.

Omaha NBC affiliate WOWT spoke with Mike Troy, a local resident and high school football coach whose home is on a newly created island. The water wasn’t deep enough to warrant a rescue, he said.

As of 10:20 p.m. ET, nearly 155,000 energy customers were without power in Texas following several days of severe weather, according to energy connection tracker PowerOutage.us, while 15,900 were also without power in Wisconsin.