Wild Night in Iowa City

I didn’t do any fishing today, but I had a social engagement this evening on the Ped Mall in Iowa City. Sirens went off around 8:30, and the management of the bar I was in told everyone to get down in the basement. Being the idiot I am, I went outside on the sidewalk to see what was going on. I have never seen a funnel cloud before, but now I have. I have never seen mailboxes flying above a shopping mall, but now I have. I have never seen cars flipped over by a tornado, but now I have.

I ran back in to the bar, and hid by the inside wall, praying the ceiling didn’t come off. The windows did blow in, but none of the glass cut me. I went outside after the wind stopped, and found what looked like a war zone, complete with the National Guard troops who showed up quickly to stop the drunken idiots who started going through the cars and shops that got tipped over or ripped open by the tornado. There were also a lot of buildings around campus that did get ripped open by the storm. The Cambus building is missing most of its roof, and the church on the east side of the river is missing most of its top. When I went to drive home, I can say with my own eyes that the DQ on the west bank of the Iowa is completely gone. The car dealership (Honda?)down there looks utterly destroyed, with most of the vehicles in the parking lot tossed all over. I heard a lot of rumors via cell phone that the IC Menards is missing most of its roof, but I didn’t go that way myself, so I don’t know if it is true. Most of the trucks and cars around the Ped Mall were trashed, but my vehicle parked a half mile away was fine, as is my apartment in Coralville. I am counting myself one lucky slightly drunk idiot tonight, but there are a lot of people in IC who aren’t as lucky.

Menards roof caved in, and slighty injured two people. I think (reported so far) there are only five injured, and everyone is doing ok. I drove through downtown earlier, I had not idea it was that bad vikefan, I saw the banks windows that got blown in, and the street lights blown over. I even saw some apartments with the roofs…gone.
Dairy queen left me breathless, that has been here for so long..
I sure hope everyone is ok, I know I am not sleeping tonight.
I am still at a loss for words..it was BAD, I could hear that thing coming, and I all I could do was pray..

I watched the weather unfolding on TV last night and could not believe how tornado warnings in your area. I live by Waterloo, we was just on the edge of that huge storm. I pray that everyone is okay that went thru that storm.

Just watched the news this morning and Iowa had 19 reported tornadoes last night. WOW, just unbelievable. They said so far there is 2 fatalities. The weather channel is saying strong storms again in Iowa for saturday evening

We were lucky up in the Dubuque area. I guess there was some hail around but I didn’t see any. The lightning was fantastic. I believe we got a quarter inch of rain most of which fell inside of a half hour. The area from Iowa City to Muscatine seems to have gotten the worst of it. I guess there was also tornado damage near Anamosa as well. The rain isn’t bad but nobody needs the hail and tornados.

Eyehunter

I could see the storm building as i drove home from the east going west where the storm was still about 50 miles away to the west. The clouds were purple and green and looked like they meant business with alot of big lightning bolts that were hitting the ground and going sideways too. As the storm built and came in to town we began getting reports of hail the size of golfballs all over 5 counties. The weathermen said that those storm clouds with big updrafts around 150 miles an hour to make big hail were poping up all over the place. The Iowa City, Coralville area had 3 tornados on the ground that i know of for sure, two were on the ground at the same time, one up by interstate 80 going east and then the bigger one that took the dairy queen and the car dealership. A special weather bulliten broke in on the weather warnings and reports being announced right then and gave a special report and said this one on the south end of Iowa City was on the ground and was big and very dangerous and too take cover immediately. As the sirens on the north side of town where i live here in Cedar Rapids stopped from a tornado that was on the ground by county home road 7 miles north of me on the north side of town i could hear the faint sirens from the south down around the coralville area 18 miles to the south with huge claps of thunder coming from there as doppler was telling the close postiton of the tornado by interstate 80. Doppler radar seen the hook in the cloud formation from the tornado that went into the south side of Iowa city then a sighting from a Highway patrolmen confermed it. Just south of me 7 miles by fairfax they had hail the size of softballs and up around anamosa in jones county it was the size of baseballs, here it hailed 3 seperate times with it being only the size of quarters. Around Guttenburg and dodge county Wisconsin they had hail the size of baseballs that covered the ground from the northern most storm cell. The storms damage is still coming in but as it sounds now The Iowa City area, especially the south side got hit pretty hard. If anybodys got anything else to add please let us know.

I went back to downtown early this morning to check things out in daylight and help move trash off the streets. There are a lot of downed trees, and the structural damage to various places, but things are getting cleaned up. Without a chainsaw I couldn’t do much but get in the way, so I came back home. I heard there is a relief station being set up on Riverside, and that Wal-Mart is taking donations as well.

The roof was ripped partially off the Union Bar, which I couldn’t see for sure last night. I was right across the way at Brothers where the door was left open, which explains the flying debris inside, but the windows are fine. Martini’s also took some damage. The Firestone Tire place by the DQ was ripped up pretty bad, as was the auto repair place on the corner of Riverside and Benton. Chezik-Sayers Honda got one corner of the building caved in, along with the damage to the cars in the lot. The twister leaped the river right at the DQ, and kept moving northeast from there. The Cambus building was then hit, and the parking ramps by the Old Capitol Mall and the south side of the ped mall. The ramps themselves look alright, but a lot of the cars there got their windows popped, and some parked outside have good-sized pieces of roof laying on them. I heard there is a lot of damage around Rochester Street and Iowa Avenue, but I didn’t go that far.

didnt realize this thread has been started. I posted on in the general forum also. Hope everyone is alright. My sisters house was a total loss down there. Tornado ripped the roof off the house, blew out the windows, took the garage and front porch somewhere, pulled the gas line out of the ground and broke it, left the house standing at wierd angles, and moved her car up the street and deposited a tree on it.

I’ll probably be down there this weekend to help with the cleanup.

Everything is going “good” right now, lots of people are volunteering and helping out. It is a mess, the U of I closed classes today. Chainsaws are getting a workout.

Steve Lepic, (in my latest report) has been working since it hit, lots of gas pipelines have been torn in half because of uprooted trees…

Picture from last night, of one of the car dealerships..

You can barely make out the tornado…

Lots of this..

More..

Do any of you Iowa City guys know of any damage done to the trailer park just S/SW of the airport off S Riverside Drive? My dad lives there. He and my step Mo left for a week long vacation Wed eve so I hav’nt heard anything about damage there in particular.

I’ve met quite a few good folks down there over the years and for what it’s worth,your all in my thoughts and prayers.

GEEMAN- I am NOT positive, but I do not believe that area was hit, I think just north of there is where it began it’s touch down in Iowa City. I will check tomorrow to make sure-

Thanks Luke.
My dad got ahold of me today and said no damage to speak of at his place. Guess the tornado skipped over Fin&Feather (ALWAYS my first stop when I come to town. LOL)and Pauls but took out a muffler shop just down the road to the east. Crazy stuff man!