Tornado Damage

We had several tornadoes come through the area last night after dark causing lots of damage west and south of us in Varina and Fonda and around Pocahontas where Diane lives. These pictures are all from the Pocahontas area. Lots and lots of debris in the fields. Some places that had several buildings are totally gone. At one house, people were in the basement while their house was blown away and their pickup ended up in the basement with them. We heard a fire truck was blown on its side. Most of them were EF3 tornadoes.

Glad that Diane & Todd were ok as this was about a mile from them. They were in the basement with the girls. I was in our basement for quite a while until about midnight. The firemen weren't officially called out but they were all watching from their homes until they thought a funnel might be north of our town. Then they went out. After we all got to bed, another round of bad rain & lightening came through.

Just heard on the news that 7 hog confinement buildings were destroyed. One home had a completely concrete storm shelter like we have but the top even came off of it! The guy said without it though they probably wouldn't be alive.

Half of the town of Mapleton of about 1200 people is gone. It's a miracle that no one was hurt in any of these areas.

These pictures show a very small part of the damage. Lots of cleanup to be done.