Riveting Article - Parkersburg

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This article was in yesterday's Des Moines Sunday Register, covering the occasion of the first high school football game this season in Parkersburg, Iowa. That town having been badly hit by a tornado back in late May, destroying the high school, and 1/3 of the town. The same tornado tore across the landscape three miles south of our farm, destroying many farmsteads, changing the look of the neighborhood forever.

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Though I feel the emphasis on high school sports can be overdone, in this case it does provide a rallying point for the community of Parkersburg. The article is riveting to read, for it relates one family's harrowing experiences during the moments when the tornado passed through Parkersburg.

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And, it still just boggles my mind that of all the small towns in Iowa, the tornado decided to smash into Parkersburg, the small town in Iowa which has FOUR native sons in the NFL. I'm quite sure no other small town in Iowa can make such a boast......and probably not even the larger cities!

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Parkersburg Area Tour

On my way to pick up my daughter's yellow Lab, Izzy, last Saturday, I made a point to drive through Parkersburg, the town hit by an EF-5 tornado on Memorial Day weekend.

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The twister cut a path of destruction along the south side of town; this watertower stands undamaged a bit to the south of that area. (Something else I did notice, in connection with something I wrote about in a previous blogpost, is that that the same high-voltage electric line runs just south of Parkersburg near where this watertower is.......meaning the tornado basically followed that electric line all the way east to the Dunkerton area! At least, I presume it is the same line.) That pile of stuff on the left is ruined household appliances!

There was lots of clean-up activity going on........dump trucks and endloaders at work everywhere in the rubble. These photos aren't terribly good.......click on them to see them larger.

Notice the A-frame house in the photo below.........it remained mostly intact while houses around it were destroyed. The Waterloo Courier had an article about this........the shape of the roof offered nothing for the wind to latch onto to rip it away! (I tried to find the article on the Courier website, but without success....... click here to go to the WCF Courier archives for articles about the Parkersburg tornado.)

In the foreground below is a signboard spray-painted with "Lincoln Street".......that's how they label the streets right now.

East of Parkersburg, and just west of New Hartford, this road was washed out in the recent flooding of Beaver Creek.

Below are the damaged grain bins of Sinclair Elevator Co., east of Parkersburg, near the intersection of county road T-47 and highway 57. Floodwaters from Beaver Creek are still hanging around.

Now, this was just too unusual and lovely to pass by.......a random patch of colorful flowers on the ditch embankment on the north side of highway 57, just east of Parkersburg. There were no farmsteads nearby. Mostly, the blooms were "forget-me-nots".........someone would have to have planted them here sometime in the past. I wonder why........did someone have an accident here, once upon a time, perhaps......and these flowers were planted as a remembrance???

Oh, brother........we couldn't get through the day without seeing a storm, of course!! I first noticed this one as Izzy and I were getting set to head east on U.S. 20 from I-35. I thought, "No problem.......those clouds are far away to the south......nothing to worry about."

Ha! Little did I know........the further east I traveled on U.S. 20 (which, by the way, and to my dismay, had unusually heavy semi-truck traffic on Saturday because its the detour for I-80 due to the flooding near Iowa City), the closer my path came to intersecting with the storm clouds! To avoid the nasty-looking mess, I turned north on highway 14 and went through Parkersburg again, stopping to snap this photo on the slope below the curve south of New Hartford.

Then.........onward Izzy and I drove, keeping our eyes on the patch of blue sky which was our goal, to reach home there, "on the sunny side of life", beyond the border of the menacing storm clouds!!

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This is going to sound completely idiotic, but as I drove around, taking pictures, a dog beside me there in the pickup cab.........I suddenly was reminded of Robert Kincaid from the novel, The Bridges of Madison County. Of course, he was a photographer on assignment for National Geographic.......but, he did drive a pickup......and had a dog with him, I believe.......and survived mostly on Snickers bars, apples, and Coca-Cola........sounds good to me!! (I read the book years ago because the setting was in Iowa, the author being from Cedar Falls.) Eventually, I watched the movie, too, which was filmed in the vicinity of the covered bridges in Madison County, Iowa, near the town of Winterset. The movie was so-so, but there's one scene in it which I found absolutely gripping......when Francesca [Meryl Streep] is on the brink of jumping out of her husband's pickup and running to Robert Kincaid [Clint Eastwood]'s truck, which is leaving town for the last time.....!!! Oh, I'm such a sap.......my heart was in my throat! What did Francesca decide to do?? Read the book or watch the movie to find out!!)

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Back to reality.......my son just returned home from playing summer league basketball and informed me he accidentally tossed his retainers into the garbage can at McDonald's!!! Arggh! Well, there goes $200, and we'll have to make another trip to the orthodontist's office for impressions. My son will pay the bill himself, and hopefully learn a good lesson!

Aaron Eilerts

Today is the funeral of Aaron Eilerts, one of the four Boy Scouts killed when a tornado hit the Little Sioux Scout Ranch near Blencoe, Iowa, last week. Here is a link to his obituary in the Freeman-Journal newspaper from Webster City.



It appears Aaron was an only child, and had many talents and interests. Thoughts and prayers for his grieving parents and other loved ones are needed. I can't even begin to imagine the pain they must be going through.

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Here is another link, to the newspaper from Aaron Eilert's home town of Eagle Grove, Iowa, and information about the memorial fund set up there in his name.

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Here's another page from the Eagle Grove newspaper site, which contains a U-Tube video of a KCCI-TV news report about Aaron Eilert.

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Here's another website with links to news articles about the victims of the tornado at the Boy Scout Camp.

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I read somewhere that the monks of New Melleray Abbey near Dubuque, Iowa, donated a handmade casket for Aaron's burial.

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Commotion & Adjusting

Not much time for blogging........lots of COMMOTION, plus, my son is out of school now, and uses the computer off and on during the day, in between helping his dad, so I'll be ADJUSTING my time at the keyboard to his time there!

Yesterday, my daughters had a wild idea for a day away, and after lodging an initial protest, I went along with them!

Can you guess where? Here's a hint:

Homeplate is now guarded by the likes of these characters:

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Today, before my older daughter headed back home to Ankeny, she wanted to see some of the storm damage, so we took a drive.

Below is the condition of the woods along the Wapsipinicon River near the C-57 bridge in northeast Black Hawk County, Iowa. It appears Paul Bunyan came through, clipping shrubbery, and left a terrible mess.

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My daughter noticed this scene below along one of the gravel roads near where the tornado went through (You can breathe.......its just a doll's head.):

We saw the macabre sight near the spot shown below. We've had so much rain the past few days that many fields are flooded again in the low areas, as you can see in the photo.

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My sister who lives out of the area is coming here this afternoon in order to see the damage to our old neighborhood, so I'll be touring around again in a little while. Its very warm and humid here today; hopefully, no storms are developing.

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Remember........take a guess at the whereabouts of yesterday's day away!! Its about 3-1/2 hours from here.

Polly Mills Links

In a comment on the previous post, Russell (of Iowa Grasslands blog) mentioned an article in the Des Moines Register about a woman near Dunkerton whose home has now been destroyed TWICE by tornados! Click here to go to the Des Moines Register to read it. Thank you, Russell.





I attended her son Sam's funeral last September, and wrote about it in this post.

Skipper's Oz Trip

You might like to read this story of a beagle's adventure during last Sunday's storm. It was included in an article in the Waterloo Courier yesterday.

Parkersburg Teamwork

My son's high school football team went by bus to Parkersburg on Wednesday to help with storm clean-up. He took a few photos with his cell phone camera.

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He said they saw American flags flying in random places throughout the area of destruction.

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The team picked up debris at the golf course on the southeast side of town; the greens having a small creek running through them. This photo below shows how the creek looks right now.......packed full of stuff blown out of houses. My son said there was absolutely everything in there.......shoes, clothes, stuffed animals, CARS........just anything and everything from peoples' lives!

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This next photo looks north toward the part of Parkersburg which took a much less severe hit than the subdivision of newer homes on the south side of town.

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The Aplington-Parkersburg high school was demolished; a fact which both startled and fascinated my kids, who have all played basketball games in the gym there, and ran at the track.

Around this part of Iowa, the school is referred to by its initials, "A-P". A-P is well-known for successful athletic teams, especially in football, and, in fact, four former A-P standouts are on NFL team rosters.......Aaron Kampman of the Green Bay Packers, Casey Weigmann of the Denver Broncos, Brad Meester of the Jacksonville Jaguars, and Jared DeVries of the Detroit Lions. I doubt there's another small-town Iowa high school that can boast that many NFL players amongst its alumni!

I've never been a big fan of pro sports, but its heartening to read in the newspaper of the concern these NFL guys have for their old hometown area, and their plans to help raise funds to rebuild the high school.

Update 6/23/08: Here's a newspaper story about a recent fundraising event involving the NFL players from A-P.

Extreme Makeover

I'm not trying to make a joke of Sunday's terrible storm, but this photo below shows the "Extreme Makeover" vehicle heading toward my brother's farm. Its from a video he shot before he skedaddled to the basement.

And, here's why the phrase "extreme makeover" came to mind: On Sunday afternoon, just a few hours before the tornado struck, Husband and I were attending a graduation party in Evansdale. The honoree was the son of an old friend of mine who was raised on a farm just west of the farm where I grew up (now the home of my brother and his family). Our old friend is a very jolly gal, with a distinctive, infectious laugh. As we were bidding her farewell from the graduation party, she spoke of how busy her life had been lately and she jokingly said, "I'm ready for the "Extreme Makeover" TV crew to come to my house and make it over!" She was referring to her own house near Waterloo, but as it turned out, her childhood home was turned into a gutted, mud-filled shell a couple hours later! Now, that's a totally extreme "Extreme Makeover"......and the kind no one in their right mind would ever wish for!

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The rest of the photos show scenes from my old home neighborhood:

The flattened house in the photo below was a huge, square farmhouse where I used to babysit when I was a teenager. It is 3/4-mile west of my brother's place, and it is probably being engulfed by the tornado in the video scene in the above photo.

This farmstead in the next photo is 1/4-mile from my brother's place. Our grandmother was born and raised here. Its a blessing, really, that most of the old-timers of Grandma's generation aren't around anymore to see the mess left in the storm's wake. This will sound ridiculous, but I actually feel as if I've aged 10 years the past few days, and my home was not even in the storm's path! Especially so, after touring the damaged area on Monday and seeing the scope of the destruction, it almost made me feel sick. However, I don't regret driving around there and taking pictures because most of these ravaged houses and buildings have already been bulldozed into piles to be burned or buried. The clean-up is moving at a rapid pace, and that will be good for morale, keeping everyone's focus on a brighter future.

The rubble in the middle of the photo below was also a house I used to babysit at during my high school years, about 1/2-mile from my brother's farm.

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The house shown below has been abandoned for many years. When I was a kid, an old man named Louie lived there, and, even then, the house looked the same as it does now......unpainted and uncared-for! Louie was rather a hermit, I guess.......his wife and children had left him. My mom would take him cookies once in awhile and sometimes I'd tag along. Anyway, can you believe it!?..........this derelict house was one of the few buildings left standing intact in the neighborhood!! Figure that one out!!

The photos in this post were taken on Monday, the day after the storm. At every damaged farmstead there were crews mobilized to start the clean-up process with chainsaws, skidloaders, endloaders, and loader tractors. My brother told me that groups of people from various places just showed up at his farm all day Monday. As an example, he said there was a father and son from Central City, Iowa, who had seen the storm reports and simply loaded up their skid-loader and headed to Dunkerton to help out. A Red Cross van drove through the area providing food and water.
Here below is the peeled-away roof at my brother's house. They feel so very blessed that their dwelling received only this relatively minor damage. The most violent middle portion of the tornado veered a bit to the northeast, sparing their house from a direct hit.

Ah, yes.......I have many childhood memories of playing on the big rock below, which was in a little pasture lot on our farm. We kept a small herd of sheep there. My sisters and I would play "house" on the rock. (We played "house" in every conceivable spot we could find!) We'd cart dolls and blankets and toy dishes all over the farmstead to furnish our "houses", and we'd take turns being the "mom".

The old ash tree finally met its demise........and, if nothing else, we can at least be confident of one thing:...........Not even an EF-5 tornado can blow this rock away!!

Daughter's Birthday

Lest I forget, in the midst of all the recent storm activity........today is my oldest child's 27th birthday!! Here she is at 14 months:

It seems like only yesterday, of course, when she brightened our lives as our first baby!

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I do have a stormy weather memory that involves her. When she was about three weeks old, a bad windstorm went through our area.......not a tornado, but a very strong straight-line wind. It was in the late afternoon; I was feeding my daughter and watching the news, which included a severe thunderstorm warning. The storm line on the radar map appeared ominously close to home, so I ran to the north window to look out and saw the most awful-looking bunch of black clouds rolling along the ground toward our house (we were renting a place near here).

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I quickly put my daughter in an infant seat and grabbed a blanket and we ran to the north room of the basement. I can remember hearing the wind roaring overhead, and for once in my life I was truly afraid in a storm. There was added worry, too, because I wasn't sure exactly where Husband was.......I had driven him to a field we were renting a couple miles away shortly before the storm blew up. There were no cell phones back then, so people couldn't be in touch with each other constantly.

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It turned out he had taken the tractor back to his folk's farm and was trying to drive home in the car. As the strong line of wind roared through, he was sitting on the road by the cemetery, the car rocking back and forth. He saw a pine tree snap off and go flying over the tombstones and he truly thought he and the car would be next!

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When my baby daughter and I emerged from the basement, the first thing I saw was our large walnut tree leaning over against the machine shed. There were many other big branches down all over the lawn, and trees fallen over the road. It was a good thing Husband didn't keep driving; a tree or power lines could have fallen on him in the car.

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As I said, that was the only time in my life that I was truly frightened during a windstorm. Possibly, though, having another little person to be responsible for also heightened my anxiety, one of the side effects of becoming a parent!!

Night of Tornado

I almost hate to admit this, but I went driving around on Sunday night after the tornado went through, mainly to try and find out whether my brother and his family were OK. The TV news reports kept repeating that houses on his road had been destroyed, and he wasn't answering the phone, causing my concern and curiosity to be overwhelming.

When no one was looking, I escaped in the Envoy. Not far into the journey it became apparent that many gravel roads were blocked off due to downed power lines. I drove slowly along the paved road a mile north of my brother's place, trying to make out the outline of his buildings. Things looked ominously different than they had before. I pulled into an acquaintance's driveway; there were several people standing in the yard, looking south. I blurted out, "Can you see my brother's house?" I had binoculars with me, and we took turns peering through them. The Morton Building machine shed was obviously ripped open, with the combine visible inside. Bins were dented. The old barn roof had fallen in. About the house, we couldn't tell, though. Then one of the guys took the binoculars up to the second floor of the house to get a better view, coming back down shortly with the good news that the house appeared to still be there.

I left there, and made my way slowly along whatever road was open, going by my sister's house where the driveway was full of cars and pickups and people were up on the roof putting a tarp in place.........then into the town of Dunkerton, which appeared largely untouched by the storm, then out of town again towards my brother's place. Here's a scene from north of Dunkerton that night:
At my brother's corner, I was relieved to see light glowing through the windows of their house. (They had a generator running.) I didn't go down their road due to the downed lines. Look what else was in view........the sun making a sudden, surprising appearance in a sunset of out-of-place beauty!! Unbelievable!! Rain started pouring down again shortly after.
About that time, my cell phone rang.......it was my son, asking, "Mom, where are you? You'd better get home; there's another storm system moving in." Gulp. I made my way back through Dunkerton and then west to try to find an open road to the north. The only available route went by St. John's Lutheran Church, Bennington Township. It was destroyed by the tornado in May of 2000, and proudly rebuilt on the same country road west of Dunkerton. Look........this time, it lost only the top of its steeple (hopefully)!!

These photos look dark because it was nightfall by the time I went by there, and it was raining.

I had to take this adventure on my own, because my husband has better sense than to go driving around right after a tornado has gone through. I don't regret going; I knew it would be OK. Sometimes, I have to circumvent sensible-ness, and please assure me I'm not the only person who occasionally does that!

Tornado Damage

Yesterday, my son helped clear trees and debris at tornado-damaged farms south of us. He took the photos on this post. The farms are located northwest of Dunkerton.

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Keep in mind that no one died or was injured at any of these locations. The residents were either away from home at the time of the storm, or they were hunkered down in the basement with their loved ones.

Much post-storm activity at the farmstead shown in the next photo.......corn needed to be trucked away from a collapsed bin.......and livestock removed from fallen buildings. Machinery sheds all blew down.......the back half of the house roof is gone........and see the mangled trees.

SO MANY trees went down!

This entire neighborhood is simply a mess of devastation. It leaves me stunned and speechless. I grew up on this road.......my brother lives at the homeplace now; his house survived intact, but the roof over the bedroom area was peeled away. Rain poured in and the ceilings fell down. My brother says they can sleep under the stars now!





My brother videotaped the tornado bearing down on the neighborhood........that is, until he saw the neighbor's bins and buildings being popped into the air like ping-pong balls, he said. Then he decided it was time to run to the basement to join his wife and children. His video is on the KDSM-TV website (within the video link entitled "Survivors Recall Moments of Terror").

So much material loss in the area! As I imagine those folks hunkered down in their basements with the monster storm roaring overhead, I imagine that in such a moment your priorities are completely galvanized. You know what truly matters, and it is the people huddled with you. That is it. You have no control over what's going on above you; as long as your loved ones are safe, that's what counts.