Debris is spread all over Jared and Tory Crozier's property as friends, family and coworkers help clean up the damage after a tornado ripped through Minden, Iowa on Friday evening. Photographed about a mile south of Minden on Saturday, April 27, 2024.
Under blue skies on Saturday morning, Tory Crozier took stock of the farm she shares with her husband, Jared, and their five children, about a mile south of tornado-ravaged Minden, Iowa.
The large shed that housed a number of vehicles — and Jared's man cave — was destroyed. The greenhouse where Crozier had been raising plants she hoped to sell was damaged. The foundation of the family's home was tilted, the north wall detached.
"We don't know if the house is salvageable," Tory Crozier said. "I'm assuming not."
Still, three dozen volunteers using a fleet of heavy equipment already was swarming the farm to help clean up the wreckage — an effort that was replicated elsewhere in Minden and across other hard-hit portions of eastern Nebraska and western Iowa.
The work started as soon as the region's residents emerged from their basements Friday in places like Elkhorn and Bennington and Blair, after storms spun out an as-yet-unknown number of tornadoes, hail and heavy rain.
Saturday, the work resumed after sunrise as those who suffered damage — with extra muscle and machinery provided by friends, relatives and volunteers — began the daunting task of assessing losses, moving tree limbs and debris, making sense of what happened and thinking about what will come next.
State and local officials stressed that advanced warning from the National Weather Service, coverage by local news media and solid preparation and quick action by emergency responders, coupled with the fact that residents heeded warnings and took shelter, limited the storms' impact on life and limb.
As of Saturday afternoon, no deaths had been reported in Nebraska or Iowa and three dozen or fewer injuries, most of them minor, had been tallied.
“It’s an extraordinary miracle that we had a cell like this come through, and no loss of life," Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen said during a briefing Saturday after touring impacted areas.
It will, however, be days or longer before the full impact and extent of the storms are tallied.
The tornadoes that struck eastern Nebraska and western Iowa Friday were rare in their ferocity, said Chris Franks, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Omaha — especially for storms striking a metropolitan area.
Franks said five assessment teams are surveying the damage from the storms to determine how strong they were.
He said the same cell produced the tornado near Lincoln and Waverly and the one that hit Elkhorn, Bennington and Blair. It lasted for more than an hour and is being measured preliminarily at an EF-3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, with wind speeds estimated at between 135 and 165 mph.
The second tornado, preliminarily measured as an EF-2, formed over Eppley Airfield. There it destroyed four general aviation hangars and damaged several other buildings, and wrecked 31 privately owned aircrafts before moving northeast across the Missouri River and into western Iowa. The wind speeds were estimated at 110 to 135 mph.
“These are strong tornadoes and rare tornadoes,” Franks said. “To have these kinds of tornadoes that have a less than 10% chance of happening in the metro is extraordinary.”
The agency, meanwhile, is still working on a total tornado count, he said. In all, it received about 80 reports of tornadoes. That number, however, includes multiple people reporting the same twister. The final number ultimately will be much lower. The Valley office issued 42 tornado warnings during the storm, the most it has issued in a single day.
Still, the storms left many facing devastating losses.
Pillen said at the same press conference that he and Maj. Gen. Craig Strong, the state’s adjutant general, had just finished visiting some of the hardest-hit neighborhoods. They met a family who had just moved to Omaha from Kentucky six months ago and whose home was now too damaged to live in.
“I’ve come from Ground Zero, and it's extremely sobering,” Pillen said.
But he also saw volunteers by the hundreds, cleaning up shattered homes and communities.
“Once again it’s Nebraskans reaching out — salt of the earth,” Pillen said. “Nebraska neighbors helping neighbors.”
Pillen also said he received a call and a message from President Joe Biden, who promised federal assistance.
“The federal government is going to help us, every step of the way,” Pillen said.
Pillen noted that the storm actually started west of the metro area, with tornadoes reported first in Sherman County, north and west of Grand Island.
Later, a building at the Garner Industries plant on the northeast edge of Lincoln partially collapsed. Three people reportedly were injured.
Erv Portis, assistant director of the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency, said he had been in touch Saturday with county emergency managers from Grand Island east to the Missouri River.
From their reports, Portis said, Nebraska's worst damage was in western Douglas County — from Elkhorn to Bennington — as well in Saunders, Lancaster and Washington Counties. In Douglas County alone, he said “well over 150” homes were destroyed or badly damaged.
Pillen said the Nebraska State Patrol has been mobilized to provide security if needed in damaged neighborhoods. Strong, who commands the Nebraska National Guard, said its members are standing by to help if requested.
“We have the capabilities, but at this time we have no request for assistance,” he said.
He also urged residents who had suffered damage to report it through their local emergency management agencies so it can be counted in official damage assessments. Many have posted forms online for that purpose.
Local police and fire chiefs said the disaster response began even as the storm was still rampaging across the county.
“Many of us watched this tornado come into the area,” said Bennington Fire Chief Dan Mallory. “We came right behind it.”
He said 35 firefighters responded within four minutes after the storm struck Bennington. They found 60 to 65 homes severely damaged, primarily in Newport Landing, Bennington Lakes, and Woodlands Crossing.
“These aren’t events that normally happen in our area, but we have to be prepared for it,” Mallory said.
Travis Harlow, Waterloo’s fire chief, described the tornado as “fast, devastating and very destructive.” He said it missed his town but caused damage in the rural areas from the West Dodge Expressway south to F Street, and between 252nd Street and the Elkhorn River.
Omaha firefighters were the first to reach damaged neighborhoods in Elkhorn.
“Our crews ... were literally driving into neighborhoods where our neighbors were filing out of their damaged properties,” said Omaha Fire Chief Kathy Bossman. “Our firefighters reported the shock that they could see on our neighbors faces.”
She said fire crews completed their search of damaged homes by 9:30 p.m. and found no dead or seriously injured.
Bossman said at least two of her firefighters lost their own homes during the storm. So did two high-level battalion commanders with the Omaha Police Department, said Police Chief Todd Schmaderer.
'I just want the important things. The rest we’ll figure out later'
By Saturday, however, much of the focus in those hard-hit neighborhoods was on cleanup.
In the Ramblewood neighborhood, volunteers carried bundles of rakes, shovels and brooms as mountains were made of debris and shattered trees. Heavy machinery overloaded dump trucks to slowly clear the streets and sidewalks once more.
Some houses came through the tragedy nearly unscathed but not all were so lucky.
Marke Waage carried possessions up and down the stairs of his house that had been ripped apart. He’s lived there for 27 years and said he will rebuild.
It was the first time he’s ever seen a storm like this.
“So now we’re just cleaning up so we can move on,” he said. “The help we’re getting feels great. Elkhorn is a great community.”
Across the street, Amy Bales stood in her driveway as she and family picked through the rubble, where mere hours before she and her son had been buried.
“My 8-year-old was screaming next to me, my other two boys went behind a wall ... then they were pulling stuff off me and dug us out,” she said.
But the storm raged on and they began to smell gas, so they fled to their neighbor’s home. Standing amid the wreckage, Bales said the community response is nothing short of amazing.
“So much help, people picking up stuff, it’s just incredible,” she said. “I don’t know how I keep going but it’s for my kids.”
Caitlin Hansen had lived in her home in the neighborhood for her entire life of 28 years, she said. Her parents owned it for more than 40 years.
As she spoke, another piece of the house fell onto itself. “It’s still falling apart,” she noted.
She was home at the time, watching the storm approach but realized as the darkness and debris field neared to get inside. As the house was torn apart around her, she was battered by water and insulation, feeling her home being lifted upward.
“It was like a freight train, the sound was horrible,” she said as she scratched at her arms, her skin still irritated from the insulation.
The help from the community has been her main inspiration to keep going, she added. Complete strangers have offered her food and money.
While the house is destroyed, she’s been able to recover some possessions she cares about most like blankets her grandmother made for her.
“We found photos I haven’t seen in years that were thrown into the field behind the house in the storm,” she said. “I just want the important things. The rest we’ll figure out later.”
South of Blair, Dan Lehan's home was one of several destroyed east of Nebraska Highway 133. Hundreds of friends, family and volunteers arrived Saturday morning to help him and other residents pile up lumber, metal and other debris and take down heavily damaged trees with chainsaws.
As speechless as Lehan, 75, was left by his home’s destruction, he was equally speechless at the number of people who showed up to help.
“I can’t believe it. They just showed up,” he said, noting most of the people who showed up were strangers. “They just come and go to work.”
On Friday afternoon, Lehan had been watching TV coverage of the tornadoes as they devastated Elkhorn and Bennington. Then his power went out. He hurried to the lowest level of his home.
“As quick as it came, it went. I figured, ‘Well, it should be all right,’” he said. “I opened the door and saw I had no roof.”
Lehan is staying with his son and daughter-in-law in Blair. Lehan plans to build a new home on his property, where he had lived for 25 years..
And while some volunteers were assisting with cleanup, others were gathering and distributing supplies to keep those efforts going.
First Lutheran Church-ELCA in Blair had received hundreds of donations for those affected by tornadoes and for the volunteers assisting in cleanup and recovery efforts since opening its doors Friday.
Bottles of water were being sent out to disaster sites, said Erika Cada, the church’s director children’s and youth ministries. But the church also has set up a garage sale-type of environment where people can freely pick up whatever they need including clothing, dishes, baby and hygiene items.
“Right now, we’re just collecting everything here,” Cada said. “If someone contacts us, we take whatever they were willing to give.”
'We're getting a lot of work done'
Western Iowa also saw its share of damage, which was concentrated in the Minden area.
Doug Reed, director of the Pottawattamie County Emergency Management Agency, estimated that 180 houses in the north-central Pottawattamie County community had been impacted, with about 40% of them destroyed.
As of Saturday morning, four storm-related injuries had been reported from Pottawattamie County, including three individuals who were treated and released and one person who remained hospitalized in stable condition, he said. One emergency responder also was treated for injuries at a hospital and released.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds issued a proclamation of disaster emergency for Pottawattamie County and Minden declared its own state of emergency.
Reed, too, credited early warnings from the weather service, preparedness on the part of emergency responders and the attentiveness of residents with keeping the human toll low.
"We're not surprised," he said. "We're thankful."
Tory Crozier, the Minden farmer, was thankful that both her family and most of her livestock were OK.
Her family was in the basement when the storm hit. They felt pressure in their heads and their ears popped. The pressure left her with a headache.
As soon as the storm passed, friends, family and neighbors began arriving. They couldn't do much Friday night, but they started again right away Saturday.
The family lost about half their chickens. But the cows, horses and goats were fine. A calf, picked up by the storm and flung into a fence, was injured but was expected to survive.
"That was a scary thing, because I didn't want any of them to die," she said.
Crozier said she probably will stay with her sister for now. But area residents already had begun offering up campers and homes on Facebook as options for displaced residents.
"That's the great part about a small town, is you can offer that and trust people," she said.
Elsewhere, residents were already taking steps to get back to business.
David Roth, CEO of the Omaha Airport Authority, said during Saturday's press conference that Eppley Airfield had reopened after its close call with some delays. But the airport will be ready for crowds of visitors arriving next weekend for Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting in Omaha.
Likewise, Sycamore Farms near Waterloo, home of Junkstock, is expected to be back in operation in time for the festival's opening dates next weekend, said owner Jon Alexander.
There, too, volunteers, some of whom he doesn't know, arrived to help clear downed trees. Members of the Douglas County West high school baseball team were expected later in the morning. Workers had begun replacing roofs on the farm's main barn and the family's home. It wasn't the farm's first natural disaster; the 2019 floods left it covered in a layer of sand.
"We're getting a lot of work done," Alexander said. "So we're feeling very good and lucky."
World-Herald staff writers Mike Bell, Dan Crisler and Luna Stephens and photographers Anna Reed and Chris Machian contributed to this report.
“The whole back of the house was gone.” While tornadoes tore through Nebraska and Iowa and caused significant damage, there are no immediate reports of deaths or serious injuries in the Omaha metro area.
Photos and videos: Cleanup begins after severe storms, tornadoes hit Omaha metro area and Iowa
A tornado Friday completely destroyed Dan Lehan's house on an acreage south of Blair. Hundreds of friends, family and volunteers showed up Saturday morning to help Lehan and his neighbors clean up the extensive debris left by the storm.
Emergency personnel clean up damage Saturday after a tornado ripped through Minden, Iowa, on Friday. Dozens of homes in the Iowa town of a few hundred were severely damaged or destroyed.
Lillian Crozier, 9, bottle feeds a calf as friends, family and coworkers help clean up the damage on her family's property after a tornado ripped through Minden, Iowa.