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The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 8

Location:
Des Moines, Iowa
Issue Date:
Page:
8
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

The Des Moines Register ST Page 8A Monday, November 14, 2005 Iowans begin to pick up the pieces Same causes precipitate Indiana, Iowa tornadoes Twisters can pop up whenever the conditions are right, just as they were on this late-fall Saturday. $sSr? DAVID PETERSONTHE REGISTER A day later: Scott Bergman gets to work on the cleanup process Sunday after a tornado slammed into his grandfather's plumbing and heating business in Stratford on Saturday. The brick building was demolished. A Stratford woman died as a result of the storm. How to help tornado victims The following chapters of American Red Cross are assisting two Iowa towns that were hit by the strongest of several central Iowa tornadoes Saturday evening: Path of destruction The paths of the two most destructive tornadoes of a series that hit Iowa Saturday evening are shown.

STRATFORD Send a check to: American Red Cross Brushy Creek Area Chapter 33 N. 16th St. Fort Dodge, IA 50501 Video, photo galleries on Web DesMolnesi ee vide0 shot by Alan Newman Madrid, whose Register I family watches a tornado approach its property on Saturday, takes cover and then discovers the damage done to vehicles and the home. Also, find three photo galleries from the Saturday night tornadoes and cleanup efforts in Stratford, Woodward and other Iowa communities. If you have photos from the storms, or a story to tell about your experience on Saturday night, e-mail it to us at feedbackdmreg.com TORNADOES, from Page 1A Across the tornado zone Sunday, Iowans did the same: They cleaned up, salvaged possessions, rounded up livestock and raced against the coming winter to board up windows and repair roofs.

"It was like a dream," said Toby Ramsey of Woodward, who was shaking Sunday as he described watching his laundry room lift into the air, then his entire house rise off its foundation, as he crouched in the basement. "It seems so much more real today." Gov. Tom Vilsack issued an emergency declaration Sunday for Dallas and Hamilton counties. The declaration allows state agencies to step in to aid, such as with removing debris and providing security. Cleanup was heaviest in Stratford, where school is canceled today, and in Woodward.

On Sunday, Craig Cogil of the National Weather Service said the tornadoes in those towns were "high-end F2s" on the tornado-measuring Fujita scale, with wind speeds of 113 mph to 157 mph. The scales ranges from FO (weak) to F5 (violent). Gilbert, Ames, Radcliffe, Pilot Mound, Minburn, Luther, Madrid and Hospers experienced less damage. A twister ripped off Madrid resident Glennda Newman's roof and nearly sucked her husband, Alan, out the door. She was quiet Sunday, but not angry.

"It's just recovery mode," Newman said. "We'll get everything picked up. We'll see what tomorrow brings. It happened. There's nothing you can do about it.

It's done." The sound of church bells mixed with the buzz of chain saws in the Sunday morning air. An eye-watering wind blew, chilling cold in comparison to last week's unseasonably warm temperatures. Search-and-rescue dogs sniffed for trapped victims and found none. Electricity was restored in almost all areas. Construction workers with permission from their employers brought backhoes, skid loaders and tractors to clean up Woodward, a Dallas County town located about 30 miles northwest of Des Moines.

At least 22 homes there were destroyed, and 12 had lesser damage. In Stratford, a Hamilton County town about 20 miles southeast of Fort Dodge, 29 homes were either destroyed or damaged so badly that they're no longer livable. An additional 32 homes received minor damage. More than 100 people were displaced. Iowans said they were struck by the randomness of the destruction.

From his backyard, Sean Wolfe could see inside his bedroom closet, where clothes were still hanging or neatly folded. The walls of his bedroom and the roof on Cedar Avenue in Woodward were gone. But shoes sat on the bedroom floor, untouched. Boxes of children's breakfast cereal remained atop the refrigerator of Stratford resident Dan Bergman's home, while his family heirloom china was in pieces on the front lawn. The tornado sucked up all gravel from a Stratford baseball diamond and knocked over part of a cinder-block storage building.

Softballs littered the lawn. A Schwan's truck was surrounded by broken trees on Avon STRATFORD Family of woman killed searches for memories As morning broke, townspeople could finally see all the damage wrought by the violent tornado that swept through town Saturday evening, killing one resident. Twenty-nine homes were destroyed, and at least 32 more were damaged. Block after block, homes were missing roofs or walls. In some cases, the houses were leveled.

Authorities said the tornado cut through Stratford's northwest edge, its wake of destruction covering about a dozen city blocks. Tornado victim Lucille Runyan's grieving family members picked through the remnants of her home, hoping to find family mementos. Daughter-in-law Kim Runyan searched for pictures. By midmorning she had a small pile of items: A broken lamp, some books and a few pieces of clothes. By ABBY SIMONS REGISTER STAFF WRITER When it comes to weather odds, Iowans are more likely to be shoveling their driveways in mid-November than running for basements and storm shelters.

November tornadoes are unusual, but they happen. Even two Midwestern November twisters within a week of each other is not unheard of. Meteorologists have an explanation. The same weather elements came together Saturday evening in Iowa and a week ago in Indiana and Kentucky to create an atmospheric stew that spawned tornadoes. In Iowa, some of the twisters' winds reached around 150 mph, at the high end of the F2 rating on the Fujita scale, which measures a twister's force from F0 (the weakest) to F5 (the strongest).

One person died, apparently the first fatality to result from a November tornado in Iowa. Twenty-two people were killed by Indiana and Kentucky tornadoes last week. "It was low-level moisture, warmth and a lot of instability," said Matt Steinbugl, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "Adding all those ingredients together comes up with the right recipe for tornado generation." Jason Parkin, a meteorologist with KCCI-TV in Des Moines, explained the anatomy of the storm. Unseasonably warm weather generally spawns the late fall tornadoes, Parkin said.

Saturday, the day the storm hit, the high was 68 degrees. The warm temperatures combined with wind shear, or a shift in wind speed and direction. Also a factor was warm, moist air coming from the south; November usually has cool and dry air. "We had that heat and moisture, which thunderstorms use like a car uses gas," Parkin said. Wind shear forced the warmer air to rise, creating various small storms.

As those storms continued to rise, they began to rotate and became the tornadoes that caused damage in several central Iowa towns. According to the National Weather Service, in the past 54 years, 23 tornadoes have been reported in Iowa in November. Two dates accounted for more than half of those twisters: Nine were on Nov. 9, 1975, and eight on Nov. 15, 1988.

Until this year, there were 11 injuries but no deaths from November twisters. State Climatologist Harry Hill-aker said that, in its history, Iowa has experienced tornadoes in every month. A tornado outbreak Jan. 26, 1967, resulted in fatalities. Some scientists have suggested that global warming may be contributing to some of the extreme weather the planet has been experiencing.

Hillaker said he thinks that global warming, or any other climate change, is an unlikely cause for the storms. "When it comes to global warming, globally, temperatures are one degree Fahrenheit warmer than they were 100 years ago. That simply wouldn't make that much of a difference," he said. "And in Iowa, there's less change than that." "It's just stuff," he said. On Sunday, trees were strewn across the back yard.

The family's second-story, three-season porch had collapsed. Wicker chairs, assorted furniture and a basketball hoop were in the front yard. "It was over in four seconds," he said. John Ross, assistant emergency management coordinator in Story County, said the storm system produced at least three separate tornadoes Saturday. Officials were still assessing damage, but Ross estimated two homes were damaged in Ames, with one destroyed.

In the Gilbert area, about three homes were damaged, and a large machine shed was leveled, Ross said. Safety officials are helping homeowners without water or electricity to make sure they have a place to stay, he said. Usa llvermore Radcliffe 5:23 p.m. HAMILTON JP Ames 4:33 p.m. Area Shown Source: National Weather Service THE REGISTER residents, including one bedridden man who needed help getting into a wheelchair, were hustled into storm shelters, administrator Mary Hodapp said.

Downed trees were the only damage. But just blocks Jackie Seeman had to flee in a T-shirt and underwear, clutching her poodle-mix dogs, one under each arm, as her house shredded around her and slid off its foundation. A night-shift nurse, Seeman was dozing off in bed before her shift when she heard the wind whistle and what sounded like a loud explosion. She thought her wood-burning stove had exploded, Seeman said Sunday morning, her voice quivering as she described her ordeal. Her dogs dove under the bed as Seeman, 47, was thrown to the floor.

A dresser fell on top of her. WOODWARD Send a check to: American Red Cross Central Iowa Chapter 21 16 Grand Ave. Des Moines, IA 50312 bullet, basically," he said. Morlan said five homes were damaged along the path of a tornado that traveled through central and eastern Boone County, with the worst damage between Pilot Mound and Boxholm. Crews with the National Weather Service determined that the tornado that pounded Stratford originated in Boxholm.

It stayed on the ground, carving a steady path, regardless of obstacles. "There's always that myth that it won't cross the river, but there's tree damage on both sides of the (Des Moines) River," Morlan said. "It just stayed on the ground, went right down the river valley and came right back up the other side." Directly after the storm, 1,300 homes were without power, Al-liant Energy spokesman Ryan Stensland said. Most was restored by 10 p.m. Saturday.

About 40 utility employees worked through the night. By 4 p.m. Sunday, fewer than 20 homes were without power, mostly in Boxholm. The power company was still trying to restore a gas line in Stratford. Register reporters Lisa Llvermore and Abby Simons contributed to this article.

daughter were in the process of moving to a new home in Boone. "Everything is in there," he said. "Wedding dress to wedding albums." A child's car seat, wrapping paper, and a teal ruffled pillow were some of the items in the rubble. Later, he learned the wedding album had been found under a tree. "It's a start," he said.

Jennifer Jacobs and Lisa Livermore AMES 'It was over in four seconds' Paul Livingston, his wife and their two children emerged from their basement Saturday to find most of their home on Ames' North Dakota Avenue gone. Friends and family loaded trucks and trailers with belongings to be stored at Livingston's parents' house in Ames. Ay A uuotiuiu 46 p.m. Pilot Mound 4:27 p.m. D.t' Minburn 4:33 p.m.

6 miles Street in Stratford. Its driver had abandoned his frozen-food deliveries to seek shelter. He normally makes deliveries on Tuesdays but for some reason was doing it Saturday, said Mark Nagel, who let the driver into his home. The top of someone's house was sitting next to a jungle gym in a park on Tennyson Avenue in Stratford. A red boat was entangled in a maple tree, 15 feet from the ground.

"The park is a war zone," said neighbor Jim Mead. "I had no idea there was this much damage. I look all around us, and it's just absolute devastation." If the tornado had veered north, it could have hit Woodward Resource Center, a state-run facility for people with mental retardatioa When tornado sirens sounded at the facility at 4:09 p.m., all 250 When a friend found a batch of pictures, Kim Runyan broke into tears. "These are the most precious things," she said. Lucille Runyan's daughter was injured.

She was one of four people in Stratford taken to the hospital. Tim Higgins WOODWARD Home of 27 years ravaged by storm Julie Kiley stood in what had been the second story of her home, handing furniture out to a friend on a ladder. The sun shone brightly through where the roof should have been. Kiley and her husband, John, saw the tornado approaching their farm Saturday, so they drove about 3 miles east of their home to escape. They returned to find the entire east wall of their home gone and most of the roof blown off.

Fences, barns and sheds had blown away. Gilbert. 5:12 p.m. Luther 4:44 p.m. f.

Woodward Madrid 4:33 p.m. 4:45 p.m. She saw blood and feared her dogs were injured, but the blood turned out to be her own. She scooped up her pets, scaled the debris and ran from the house. A neighbor gave her clothing.

Sunday morning, Seeman and her husband, Bill, who was grocery shopping in Perry when the tornado struck, stared at their house, which was sitting next to its foundation. The house is just bulldozer material," he said. Jackie Seeman leaned against her husband's shoulder, wiping her eyes. Their belongings were scattered in a 200-yard radius. Their boat and a garden tractor had been tossed hundreds of feet.

Their basement was filled with debris. Bill Seeman was thankful his wife was asleep when the storm hit. If she had gone to the basement, he said, she might not have survived. And it's odd how the three tornadoes that touched down in Boone County just roughed up a few homes and some utility poles, said County Emergency Management Coordinator Dave Morlan. "Boone County dodged the steel building, scattering it in pieces across the fields.

Trevor Jensen, a home builder, said the home-wrecking tornado wiped out $60,000 to $80,000 worth of his tools and equipment stored inside. A windmill had crashed into the garage. But the farmhouse, a yellow two-story built in 1905, was "absolutely fine," Jensen said with a laugh. "It's just amazing. I just couldn't believe the house wasn't hurt at alL" "Oh, that's a relief!" said Durham, who now lives in Wake Village, Texas.

Her first husband, Jennings Charlson, was born in the house in 1918, as well as her two children, who are now 50 and 53. Meanwhile, the farm's new owner, Jim Pollard, a dentist from Boone, said he didn't think he had insurance to cover the loss on the property. Jensen, Pollard's son-in-law, rummaged for personal belongings he had placed in the steel shed while he, his wife and 2 1-month-old November Tornadoes: Aftermath With the help of friends and family, they rounded up most of their 40 head of sheep Sunday morning. One was dead and several were still running loose. A sheep with two broken legs would have to be destroyed.

John Kiley looked at what was left of the home. Julie Kiley's grandfather was born in the house, and the couple had lived there for 27 years. John Kiley threw his hands up and smiled. "I've just been laughing a lot," he said. "What else can you do?" Jui Probasco-Sowers GILBERT Farmhouse survives to ex-owner's relief As is typical in small towns, word quickly spread that some of the worst destruction in Gilbert was at the farm on 530th Avenue that once was owned by 80-year-old Rita Charlson Durham.

The tornado mangled the farm's tffw tfv fa-win' ymi-y sp--im" (1v.

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