MAPLETON, Iowa (AP) – Jamy Garden’s house began to rumble with the approach of a tornado that at one point measured three-quarters of a mile wide.
Then the windows shattered, spraying her with glass. Using her cell phone as a flashlight, she fled downstairs and called her grandmother.
On Sunday, she returned home, wandering her backyard in a blood-splattered hooded sweat shirt, her right hand and left knee wrapped in gauze. Around her lay a tangle of tree branches, twisted siding, broken glass and a canoe that wasn’t hers.
The tornado that struck the evening before damaged more than half of Mapleton, a town of 1,200 in western Iowa, Mayor Fred Standa said Sunday. He estimated about 20 percent of the town was “almost flat.”
The huge, centuries-old trees the town was named for had been pulled out of the ground and wrapped around houses and tossed on top of cars, Standa said. In one case, a huge motor home had been flipped on its side.
“It’s not a pretty sight,” Standa said. “It’s something nobody has seen in this town.”
Garden’s house survived, but everything inside was tossed around. Her two dogs were safe, but she hadn’t yet found her cat.
“I don’t know where our gazebo went,” she said. “The garbage can right there, that was in the front yard. The shed is gone. I don’t know what else to tell you. This is the most tumultuous thing I’ve ever experienced by far.”
The tornado destroyed 12 to 15 blocks in the southwest corner of Mapleton when it struck about 7:20 p.m. Saturday, Monona County Sheriff Jeff Pratt said. The tornado destroyed about 100 homes beyond repair, and has displaced an estimated 500 to 600 residents, he said.
The tornado was on the ground for three and a half miles and measured three-quarters of a mile wide at one point, according to the National Weather Service office in Valley, Neb. The twister was measured to be on the lower end of an EF3, which carries wind speeds of 136 to 165 mph.
The tornado was one of several reported in Iowa. The weather service said it had confirmed a total of four smaller twisters that touched down near Early and Nemaha, damaging several homes.
Storms moved through the nation’s midsection again Sunday, with some reports of tornadoes in Wisconsin, where several homes were damaged or destroyed. No injuries were immediately reported.
In Mapleton, the roof was blown off a high school, power lines were downed and homes and buildings were destroyed. Pratt said two people were taken to hospitals with minor injuries. The weather service said it had received reports of 14 to 16 injuries, the most severe a broken leg.
