A hundred homes damaged, 1 injured in Friday tornado outbreak, NWS in Wisconsin says
Officials say more than 100 homes were damaged and one person was injured in a "significant tornado outbreak" across Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa on Friday.
The National Weather Service in La Crosse, Wisconsin, said it issued 26 tornado warnings during the outbreak, the most for a single day since the office opened in 1995.
"The most tornadoes occurred locally north of Interstate 90 in southeast Minnesota and west-central Wisconsin," the NWS said.
A tornado that touched down in Olmsted County, Minnesota, around 2:17 p.m. was rated an EF2, according to the NWS, with wind speeds peaking around 130 mph. That tornado was on the ground for about 14 minutes, traveled about 10 miles and damaged "numerous homes and farms," the NWS said.
"Some of the worst damage was seen near Marion Road just northeast of Highway 52, where homes were more severely damaged with roof removal and partially collapsed exterior walls," the NWS said.
An EF3 tornado, with a max wind speed of about 140 mph, hit near Cream, Wisconsin, just before 3:30 p.m., per the NWS. It traveled about 8 miles over 16 minutes, damaged a home, downed several trees and destroyed some farm outbuildings.
The lone reported injury occurred near Howard, Iowa, when the driver of a box truck was forced into a ditch by a tornado.
NWS Meteorologist Alex Ferguson said that the conditions were ripe for strong thunderstorms this week. He noted that not only was Friday a record-breaking day, but it was the largest number of tornado warnings issued in the region for the month of April.
"This time of year is unusual," Ferguson said.
He said that while there aren't typically this many tornadoes in Minnesota at this time of year, it's too early to tell if this will have any bearing on storm severity throughout the summer. Ferguson said it's fortunate no one was injured, given the strength of the tornadoes that touched down around Rochester.
"We got those tornado warnings out for Marion about 20 minutes in advance of it striking that town, I do believe we got those out in a timely fashion," Ferguson said.
The warnings went out early enough for Troy and Chelsey Holmberg to leave their Rochester home in search of a tornado. They got what they were looking for, but to their horror, it turned out they didn't need to leave the house in order to see it. Troy Holmberg said he watched as the tornado barreled for his neighborhood from the car.
"My wife and I went to find it. Unfortunately, we followed it back to our house," Holmberg said.
His neighborhood is the one off Marion Road in southern Rochester that was all but leveled on Friday afternoon. WCCO's crews found multiple houses without roofs or standing walls; in some spots, neighbors said that vehicles had been thrown dozens of yards.
Holmberg was part of a team of neighbors still working to clear debris from roadways and yards on Saturday. He said that their main focus was creating a path for utility companies to repair or erect new electricity poles. Since Friday, no one in the neighborhood has had power; given the neighborhood runs on a well system, he explained it meant no one had access to water either.
"It's so hard when you pull into the neighborhood and you see everyone else's houses being affected," Holmberg said.
Olmsted County Sheriff Kevin Torgerson confirmed that there are still no reported injuries in the area as a result of the storm. He said that the shelter that had been established at Autum Ridge Church is now closed.
"All displaced families have made their own arrangements," Torgerson said.