Spring Break
Iowa town devastated by storm that killed seven
May 27, 2008
Deborah Horan - Chicago TribuneIssue date: 5/22/08 Section: Real News
PARKERSBURG, Iowa _ Rusty and Julie Eddy were paddling in a canoe when the tornado destroyed their home. The Hoppenworths were fishing, and the Collingses had been invited to a fish fry in the next town over.
Of five families lining one side of Circle Drive in Parkersburg, population 2,200, only Tim Cuvelier saw the mammoth storm cover. Marv Aalderks smelled the scent of evergreen from his basement shelter and knew trees had been freshly ripped from the ground.
"The whole horizon was just spinning," Cuvelier said Monday, surveying the pile of broken wood, mangled cars and a stairway leading to nowhere that once was his home. "The second floor of my house is about 200 yards away in a baseball field."
When the two men emerged from separate homes Sunday, they found houses reduced to rubble and debris strewn for more than a mile in every direction. More than 200 homes had been destroyed and four people had been killed.
Only the holiday weekend and a new tornado siren had kept the death toll from climbing higher, authorities said.
Cuvelier and Aalderks were among dozens of devastated families who spent Monday sifting broken belongings and searching for pictures and other mementos in the wreckage.
"You could hear the nails pull out of the wood," Aalderks said as he pondered what to do with a piano that had survived intact in the basement.
All over town, wet mattresses hung from broken tree branches and piles of splintered wood dotted lanes where houses once stood. Homeowners dragged tree stumps with pickup trucks, collected battered clothing and counted themselves among the lucky because no one in their family was killed.
The twister left a track of destruction about a mile wide and more than a mile long, authorities said. Police and firefighters estimated another 400 homes were damaged and 70 people were injured when the twister touched down about 5 p.m. Sunday.
Twenty-one businesses also were damaged, as well as the high school, City Hall and the town's sole grocery store and gas station. New floodlights installed around the high school baseball diamond were destroyed, the dugout had vanished and the bleachers were gone.
Of five families lining one side of Circle Drive in Parkersburg, population 2,200, only Tim Cuvelier saw the mammoth storm cover. Marv Aalderks smelled the scent of evergreen from his basement shelter and knew trees had been freshly ripped from the ground.
"The whole horizon was just spinning," Cuvelier said Monday, surveying the pile of broken wood, mangled cars and a stairway leading to nowhere that once was his home. "The second floor of my house is about 200 yards away in a baseball field."
When the two men emerged from separate homes Sunday, they found houses reduced to rubble and debris strewn for more than a mile in every direction. More than 200 homes had been destroyed and four people had been killed.
Only the holiday weekend and a new tornado siren had kept the death toll from climbing higher, authorities said.
Cuvelier and Aalderks were among dozens of devastated families who spent Monday sifting broken belongings and searching for pictures and other mementos in the wreckage.
"You could hear the nails pull out of the wood," Aalderks said as he pondered what to do with a piano that had survived intact in the basement.
All over town, wet mattresses hung from broken tree branches and piles of splintered wood dotted lanes where houses once stood. Homeowners dragged tree stumps with pickup trucks, collected battered clothing and counted themselves among the lucky because no one in their family was killed.
The twister left a track of destruction about a mile wide and more than a mile long, authorities said. Police and firefighters estimated another 400 homes were damaged and 70 people were injured when the twister touched down about 5 p.m. Sunday.
Twenty-one businesses also were damaged, as well as the high school, City Hall and the town's sole grocery store and gas station. New floodlights installed around the high school baseball diamond were destroyed, the dugout had vanished and the bleachers were gone.
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