Severe weather continues to batter the Midwest after tornadoes strike
INDIANAPOLIS -- Many Indiana residents were scrambling yesterday to board up broken windows and clean up other high wind and hail damage before another round of severe storms moved across the region.
Strong storms passed through Indiana on Friday night, and there were unofficial reports of tornadoes northeast of Lafayette and near Crawfordsville, officials said. No injuries were reported.
The National Weather Service was surveying damage yesterday in several Indiana counties. Meteorologists predicted that another round of storms would move through the state last night and today.
Illinois was hit by high winds and hail, and the Weather Service confirmed that a tornado touched down in Lincoln early Friday morning.
A string of tornadoes in Iowa City on Thursday tore across the University of Iowa campus, ripped walls off a downtown church, and killed a woman in a mobile home outside town.
The Weather Service said five tornadoes touched down in Johnson County, Iowa, the most destructive carving a 3.5-mile path of damage through Iowa City and the university.
''There was debris flying everywhere inside the house," said Melissa Fortman, a University of Iowa sophomore who huddled with friends in the basement of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority house as the sirens sounded. She decided to run upstairs for her homework just as the tornado hit.
''I couldn't go downstairs because there was debris and glass flying up the stairs, so I just hid in a telephone booth we have in our house, and I just hid there crying," she told ABC's ''Good Morning America."
Entire walls of the sorority house were gone, and the interior of several rooms were visible from the street. Two cars had been tossed into a ravine, and glass, debris, and tree limbs littered the neighborhood.
The tornado damage extended from Iowa City southeast through Nichols, about 20 miles away, the Weather Service said.
''We have a path in the Nichols area that's 4 to 5 miles long," said Major Dave White of the Muscatine County sheriff's office.
He said the tornado hit farms and a mobile home with a man and woman inside.
''It blew it off the foundation, and the trailer rolled and basically disintegrated," White said. The woman, whose identity was not released, died in the storm.
Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa declared a state of emergency for Johnson, Jones, and Muscatine counties.
In Iowa City, 30 people were reportedly treated at hospitals for storm-related injuries.
Downtown, half the roof of St. Patrick's Catholic Church was torn off. Store windows were shattered. Police said there were isolated cases of looting and a handful of arrests for disorderly conduct.
