Central Iowa was reeling Wednesday morning after what police described as a “catastrophic” tornado destroyed rural areas and killed an unknown number of people.
Iowa State Police confirmed Tuesday that multiple people were killed in the town of Greenfield, a community of about 2,000 people 40 miles southwest of Des Moines.
There were 18 tornado warnings issued across Iowa on Tuesday, as well as one each in Wisconsin and Minnesota, adding to an already unusually busy tornado season.
At least 12 people were treated in hospital, Sergeant Alex Dinkla said at a news conference. However, the town’s Adair County Memorial Hospital was also damaged, forcing first responders to transport victims to another facility.
The National Weather Service said severe weather will move from the Midwest into the Southern Plains and Mississippi River Valley on Wednesday, bringing the potential for large hail, strong winds and tornadoes to Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas.
In total, about 44 million people across a vast swath of the United States, from Texas to upstate New York, will be at risk of severe weather. Flood watches are in effect for 8 million people, including the Dallas metropolitan area, with more than 3 inches of rain possible this afternoon and evening.
For about 20 million people from Memphis to New England, the risk will continue through Thursday.
Aerial footage from Greenfield late Tuesday showed the entire path of the tornado reduced to rubble, with piles of debris piled up among snapped trees and destroyed cars.
A man near Red Oak in Montgomery County captured footage of a huge funnel cloud moving through the area as sirens wailed and heavy rain fell.
Confirmed tornadoes have damaged at least 28 homes, ranging from “impacted to destroyed,” Montgomery County Emergency Management said in a statement.
A wind turbine is abandoned near Prescott, Iowa. And near the town of Nevada, Iowa, winds were strong enough to overturn a semi-truck parked on a highway due to extreme conditions. There were no reports of related casualties.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds declared a disaster in 15 counties and was scheduled to visit the area Wednesday.
The situation in Iowa is so serious that the National Weather Service announced it will send three teams from its Des Moines office to survey tornado damage, with results expected Wednesday night.
Elsewhere in Colorado, large hail ripped off building exteriors and shattered car windows. Denver’s NBC affiliate KUSA reported that the hail was at times the size of baseballs.
In Omaha, Nebraska, cars were swept away and some were left stranded by heavy flooding caused by 4 to 8 inches of rain.
Omaha NBC affiliate WOWT spoke with local man and school football coach Mike Troy, whose home is on a newly constructed island, who said the water wasn’t considered deep enough to justify a rescue.
More than 70,000 energy customers were still without power in Texas and 67,000 in Wisconsin as of 6 a.m. ET after days of extreme heat, according to energy connection tracking site PowerOutage.us. There’s a power outage.
