Iowa town clears up after tornado

STORY: :: Residents begin clearing up after a tornado slices through this Iowa town

:: May 23, 2024

:: Greenfield, Iowa

:: Victoria Turner, Resident

"This was my house. And we were, this was the basement. And it picked my house up and dropped it right there. That's what's left of my home."

:: Jon Crawford, Shop owner

"Right now, these young, young people over here are trying to help me dig stuff out. Since I did have a store here, there's still a lot of stuff lying under there that ain't broke."

"But something like this, you know, it takes time to clean it all up. It's going to be a lot of years before this town gets back to normal. We have to plant new trees. We'll be I'll be dead and gone before it's all normal."

Officials were still assessing the full extent of property damage in Greenfield, a community of 2,000 about 60 miles southwest of Des Moines, the state capital.

The tally of casualties was announced by the Iowa Department of Public Safety, after rescue teams picked through fields of debris left by the deadly twister in search of people who might be trapped in the wreckage.

The twister that touched down in Greenfield was among a swarm of tornadoes reported in southwestern Iowa on Tuesday afternoon and evening. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said preliminary reports counted 23 potential tornadoes, mostly in Iowa.