Anyone in NE Iowa?

Thanks for your kind words, we're still in a state of shock. Did get to talk to several cousins that did get into town, they said the amount of destruction is so massive that it's very hard to describe.
 
From what I saw in the WHO13 video, it looks like most of the damage is from an F3 or F4. Destroying the high school is F5 strength. It is normal to have varying degree of intensity within a twister. I'll guess the official intensity will be an F4 for Parkersburg.
 
Just talked to my father, he asked if I had any clothes that would fit him to bring them. He currently has nothing. :sad:

What size? I'm sure we could round up some shirts, pants, shorts to get through the next couple of weeks.
 
raftercy, wartnight, chadm and everyone else who lost or has friends and family in that area, be assured that our thoughts and prayers are with you and let us know what items are in need as you come across them so we can work in the background help out it and when we can.
 
We are headed up tomorrow to help out. I'm not sure if there is anything that can be done yet, but I'm not going to spend a day off doing nothing when something like this happened. I will post tomorrow night or Tuesday about anything they need. Thanks for everyone's concern. I've spoken to several people up there throughout the evening and obviously everyone is very shaken up. My in-laws said people were just walking around speechless.
 
My roommate from last fall in Ames is from Parkersburg, but lives out in the country. He called me this evening and told me what he saw. Complete devastation, houses gone. His aunt/uncle's house in town was destroyed, but they were OK. Gas station gone, school heavily damaged. He took pictures of lots of damage and will send me a few. He took a picture of a treeline with damage about a mile-wide. He found a car tossed out into an open field 3/4 mile away from anything. He went back to Ames this evening since their house had no power.

Thoughts and prayers with everyone affected! :sad:
 
We are headed up tomorrow to help out. I'm not sure if there is anything that can be done yet, but I'm not going to spend a day off doing nothing when something like this happened. I will post tomorrow night or Tuesday about anything they need. Thanks for everyone's concern. I've spoken to several people up there throughout the evening and obviously everyone is very shaken up. My in-laws said people were just walking around speechless.


You're doing the right thing, my friend!
 
I'm very sorry to hear about the loss of life and property damage. It's been a tough few days for the midwest. My prayers are with you folks.

This is a crazy weather pattern. That low pressure system is just stuck there sucking hot moist air up into the midwest. On Friday and Saturday mornings here, the minimum daily temperature was 80F. If I heard right tonight, that is the first time on record that the daily minimum temperatures did not drop below 80F in the month May.
 
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I just want to send out my prayers to my friend and her husband who are from there, just know we are praying for you Cassie.
 
We just missed it here at home.

Unreal just how dark it got.

Went down to Hazleton. The trailer park on the south part of town is gone.

Just gone.
 
Very saddened to hear this.

My family is in KC this weekend, and we were outside today, and it was sunny, but the sky was sort of white. I told my wife that it reminded me of May 5th, 2003 down here...and we had three, F-4's within 15 miles of where we lived later that day.

From what I looked up on the weather in Iowa during the afternoon, it appeared to be similar up there, if not more energy. Systems like this are rare, when weather folks know that major tornados are going to spring up.

In looking at the chopper damage video, it had to be an upper F3 if not an F4.

Prior to the Oklahoma City tornado, F5 was the biggest classification...that tornado was estimated to have winds exceeding 310 mph, which prior to that storm, was not thought to be theoretically possible.

Storms don't have to be wide to be higher on the fujita scale...its all about wind speed. Many wide tornados wind up being multi-vortex tornados, not just one vortex...and their damage is amplified as it relates to the area of disturbance.

Singular vortex storms that dont look as menacing can have amazing winds, which is how the scale is determined.
 
This is Parkersburg:

bilde
 
I work at Allen Hosptial and we were all called in for the tornados. We had 200 admissions come into the hospital, from parkersburg, dunkerton and surrounding areas. It will more than likely become more as soon as more are found in the wreckage, prayers go to the familes.
 
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It's frustrating to be in NY right now... I'm originally from Sumner, and my mom called last night and said that they had debris from [edit: Parkersburg] in Sumner... I'm glad she's safe, but she spent the night in the basement. My thoughts and prayers will be with all those affected by this.

My fiance and I just put a bunch of clothes together for goodwill here in Brooklyn (I'm getting fat), but we'd just as soon send them back to Iowa. Does anyone know where I can send clothing?
 
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