Midwestern US Rocked By Storms, Tornadoes

Storms bring hail, tornadoes to Plains

70 houses damaged, man killed in Minn.

The Associated Press, Aug. 26, 2006

NICOLLET, Minn. -- Lumber from obliterated buildings was scattered among corn stalks, concrete foundations were exposed where houses once stood, and silos were crushed like empty aluminum cans after deadly storms swept across the northern Plains with twisters and large hail.

In southern Minnesota, 70 homes were lost, dozens more structures were damaged, and hundreds of cattle were killed or on the loose.

Some wandering cattle caused car accidents a day after the storm, officials said yesterday.

``There's a lot of devastation," said Tom Doherty, chief deputy in the Le Sueur County sheriff's office. ``We have areas that you can't believe a house was there. Crops, you wouldn't even know there was a crop there. Cornfields, there's nothing left."

More severe weather rolled across Missouri yesterday; most of the Jefferson City area lost power for about two hours as people headed to work and school.

And in New York, the city was under a rare tornado warning for about a half-hour yesterday. No tornado touched down, the National Weather Service said.

Ninety-year-old Thomas O'Brien died when a tornado struck his home in rural Lake Emily, Minn., on Thursday night. Close to two dozen residents were treated at hospitals for broken bones and other injuries that were not life-threatening, Le Sueur County spokeswoman Roxy Traxler said.

Minnesota saw multiple tornadoes, and the one that caused the most damage stayed together for at least 20 miles, National Weather Service meteorologist Karen Trammell said. That twister was classified Friday as an F-3, meaning winds ranging from 158 to 206 miles per hour.

In Wisconsin, a woman was stunned when lightning struck her as she left a supermarket in Waukesha County.

In Indiana, wind gusting more than 100 miles per hour off Lake Michigan blew over trees and knocked out power along a 30-mile-wide stretch.

Twisters, heavy rain, and hail as big as grapefruit also struck the Dakotas, stripping trees of their leaves, and power was knocked out around the region Thursday.

``I was worried about whether I was going to be here today," Jeff Miller said yesterday, surveying the debris just south of Wolsey in eastern South Dakota. ``That used to be a barn," he said.