We drove down to Mt Ayr and the house is totalled, a barn across the street is gone and we went further into the country and another house was damaged and the machine shed gone with several trees down. Near us a hog house was flattened (yea! oops sorry).

http://miva.dmregister.com/miva/cgi-bin/miva?news/live/display.mv+direction=showstory&showrec=13

Tornado kills one woman, injures three near Ottumwa Posted at 13:48 on 04/11/2001 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One woman was killed and three others were injured when a tornado struck a community center about 4 p.m. at Agency, five miles east of Ottumwa.

Chad Wolbers of Ottumwa Regional Hospital said one woman had died after an Agency community center sustained weather-related damage. He would not identify her. Injured were Helen Bacon, 61, of Ottumwa; Diane Gibson, 58, of Sigourney; and Judy Headley, 56, of Ottumwa. Bacon later was moved to Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines. Gibson and Headley were listed in fair condition.

It was not clear immediately how many people were at the community center at the time. Wolbers said rescue workers were still at the scene at 5 p.m.

Elsewhere in Iowa, a tornado heavily damaged a vacant house and several other buildings about a mile east of Mount Ayr, part of a large storm.

Damage from the tornado was strung along Iowa Highway 2, about 15 miles north of the state line, Ringgold County Auditor Kim O’Mailia told the Associated Press.

The National Weather Service said several funnels had been reported out of the same storm, and several had touched down, although the only damage reported so far was in Ringgold County, meteorologist Brad Fillback said.

‘‘There have been a couple of vortexes reported with this storm. It’s been up and down,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s gone through Ringgold, Madison counties and eastern Dallas, along the Dallas and Polk county line.’’

O’Mailia said the house destroyed near Mount Ayr had just been sold and the new owners had not moved in yet.

Just west of the house, a ministorage business also was destroyed, she said. The storm tore the roofs off two other homes and some hog buildings.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2001

Answers

Beckie--do y'all have a storm cellar? Please tell me you do.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2001

If you want to see some video of the damage, here is a url, click on tornado on the ground and on the left of the pop up choose Mt. Ayr.

http://www.whotv.com/Global/category.asp?C=5534

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2001

I am so sorry this has hit your area. I know how bad they can be,we had alot down this way before. If you don't have a storm pit a good ditch will work in the mean time.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2001

Yes, we have a full basement under the house and you can get to it from inside of the house or out. Plus if we were caught in the barn, it is built on a hill and by going to the lower level, it would be relatively safe.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 2001

Does this mean there are hogs roaming the countryside?

So almost boring living in an area of the country where tornadoes and earthquakes and the strongest hurricanes simply stay away. It made preparing for y2k so much more straightforward yet so much less like the community would bother doing anything.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001

Not so sure about that, Brooks. Even though people at the NC coast have plenty of information and warning about hurricanes (experience too), many are still unprepared. Of course, preps can be swept or blown away, but there are also many areas where preps would be safe or can be transported to an evac site. I think too many people feel government will take care of things.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001

Hi all. Yesterday, while on the computer, the program on TV was interupted by a tornado warning to my town! They said a tornado had been spotted down and was on or near the main road heading this way. I called a gal here in town to see if she knew anymore and her husband looked outside. After waiting and looking at the dark clouds, with rain pouring and heavy winds...no tornado. It must have gone back up or veered in another direction before doing so. Nothing like hearing tornado spotted down on highway xzy heading towards my little part of the world. And no I don't have a basement. To think this is just the start of tornado season!

Beckie glad to hear you and yours are safe and sound.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001

Apr 12, 2001 - 09:10 AM

Tornadoes Tear Through Midwest, Leaving 3 Dead By David Pitt Associated Press Writer

AGENCY, Iowa (AP) - Tornadoes cut paths through parts of the Plains and Midwest, leaving at least three people dead and damaging buildings, uprooting trees and overturning cars. One of the handful of twisters that touched down Wednesday tore through a community food pantry in Agency, a town in southeastern Iowa. Two pantry volunteers - Mary Ellen Hewitt, 73, and Helen Bacon, 61 - were killed and three others were injured. A third person died in a tornado early Wednesday in Oklahoma.

One pantry volunteer hid behind a piano, the only thing left standing in the garage-sized building. She suffered only minor injuries.

Fire Chief Mike Holcomb said Agency was without power much of the night, and natural-gas service remained off early Thursday as workers cleaned up the mess.

"We have a lot of roofs gone, a lot of siding torn off and a lot of trees down," Holcomb said.

Two homes were also destroyed and nine were heavily damaged.

Three other twisters also hit southern Iowa on Wednesday.

Alliant Energy spokesman John Ruff said electricity was off in many areas.

"We had dealt with about 16,000 outages today across our territory in Iowa," he said late Wednesday. "We've had severe weather damage to our equipment all across the state."

In Oklahoma, Stan Whisman, 41, was killed when his mobile home was blown apart as a tornado swept across Coal County early Wednesday. Whisman was found in a nearby field and pronounced dead at a hospital, Creek County Sheriff Roy Deck said. Whisman's son was hospitalized, as was another person injured in nearby Johnston County.

Another tornado touched down in the northwest corner of Missouri, in Worth County. It destroyed several small farm buildings and at least one house.

In Cameron, 50 miles northeast of Kansas City, Mo., high winds ripped the roof off an antiques shop Wednesday, cutting off electricity to the entire city. The winds gusted at times to 60 mph.

In eastern Kansas, high winds tore half the roof off an elementary school Wednesday afternoon, after students had left for the day. Earlier in the day, winds ripped part of the roof off the auditorium and gymnasium at a high school in southwestern Kansas. Students were near the auditorium at the time, but nobody was injured. [end snip]

AP-ES-04-12-01 0910EDT © Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001

Whenever we hear that there is a tornado watch in our area, we watch The wizard of OZ on tape.

Dorothy? Dor-othy?!

There is a postcard available in Miami that has a picture of the last long-lived tornado that appeared during the day here and went thru town, sorta down mainstreet to the bay and across to Miami Beach before lifting up and leaving. That was quite a spectacle! people were standing at windows in office buildings and homes, and sitting in their cars watching it.

We have no basements here. When people dig basements, they get pools, instead.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001

Barefoot, that must of been really something to see!

I knew to buy a house with a basement, because I lived in this part of the woods before but, all the houses I looked at that had basements had either water problems or the smell of mold. Plus, I was in a hurry to get my own place.

-- Anonymous, April 12, 2001