Far southwest Iowa was hit by the first of eight tornadoes that dropped out of the black clouds onto Iowa soil on Wednesday. Mike Crecelius, the emergency management coordinator for Fremont County, says he was in Sidney about 3 P-M when he first saw signs of serious trouble.”I saw two funnels try to come down at one point, but they both got sucked back up into the cloud itself,” Crecelius says. “The third time, when the funnel started coming down, it just kept coming and it kept itself attached. I could tell it was probably coming down somewhere east of Sidney, I just couldn’t tell where because there’s a hill between us and that.”

Crecelius says he saw two homes north of Farragut that received heavy damage. “Both of them had roof damage,” he says. “The one guy’s got most of his roof missing. A grain bin was blown away at one house. At the other house, the whole house was damaged. Part of his roof is gone. He’s got two of his sheds destroyed. Plus, they had an unattached garage, and had a truck in there. Part of the garage is gone. Both of them have all sorts of trees that were demolished during the storm.”

He says it’s a miracle that no one in the area was hurt, given the amount of damage. “Both houses were occupied,” Crecelius says. “They did get the warning in enough time that in both houses, they went to shelter and nobody was injured in the storm.”

Considering the number of funnel clouds and tornado sightings in the county, and the number of photos taken from various vantage points, Crecelius says it’s a wonder the county escaped further destruction. “I’m not exactly sure how many funnel clouds/tornadoes we actually had here,” he says, “but, we’re pretty lucky there wasn’t more damage done throughout Fremont County and over into Page County than what there was.”

A National Weather Service survey team will be in Fremont County today to inspect the damage and determine the storm’s path. Crecelius asks the public for continued vigilance, as more storm activity is possible this afternoon into this evening.

(Radio Iowa)