(Radio Iowa) – The National Weather Service office near Omaha has confirmed eight tornadoes were spawned by the storm system that swept from Nebraska into southwest Iowa last Thursday morning (June 11th). At about 5:30 a.m. a tornado crossed the Missouri River, near the Fremont County town of Thurman, just about the same time another tornado touched down north of Tabor.
Around 6 a.m., three tornadoes hit near Coburg, Stanton and Villisca. The Weather Service has confirmed the tornado near Stanton picked up grain bins and dropped them a mile away at a highway intersection. The strongest tornado that morning, though, roared through Adams County at about 6:30. State Senator Tom Shipley says the house on his farm near Nodaway is a total loss.
“Nobody was hurt,” Shipley said. “We’ve got a place to stay and it’s just going to be a long time cleaning up,” Shipley’s cattle herd was spared, but Shipley says damage around the farm has left him a bit shell shocked. “I had a big pecan tree, which not many grows around Iowa, but I had one,” Shipley said. “I don’t anymore because it came right down into the kitchen.”
The tornado that struck Shipley’s farm stayed on the ground for six miles and wind speeds with the tornado reached 115 miles an hour.
(Brent Barnett, Brownfield Ag News)
