Tornado Damage in Creston Iowa

[lgoldsmith]

Our town was hit by a strong EF2 tornado last night. Hospital took a direct hit and has extensive damage. Pretty much closed down. I clean 2 of the medical clinics in the hospital and I have no idea when I'll be going back to work. Community college across road was also hit and has extensive damage. Elementary/middle school and bus barn were hit hard as well. Many homes completely destroyed. One confirmed death and am hearing of more injuries as time goes on. Our Kingdom Hall is just across the road SW of the hospital and thankfully only had very minor damage. Lots of debris blown into the yard and parking lot though. Lost a couple trees that were just uprooted. The brothers had to cut another down today because it was split. Below is a photobucket account with some of the pictures I took this morning. I will post more of the Kingdom Hall.

http://photobucket.com/crestontornado2012

[lgoldsmith]

More photos from the Des Moines Register (newspaper in Des Moines that came down to cover it)

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=D2&Dato=20120415&Kategori=NEWS&Lopenr=204150802&Ref=PH&Params=Itemnr=1

[lgoldsmith]

Pictures from Kingdom Hall after tornado last night

http://photobucket.com/kingdomhallpics

[Musky]

Great pictures, thanks!

Glad everyone is OK. Property damage can be repaired, but lost lives have to wait on Jehovah.

Thanks for posting!

[Blueyedchanel]

Oh wow that is so scary. I live in the Houston area and the bad weather is heading this way, I can hear the thunder outside. They have us under a severe weather watch, tornados are so scary. There is practically no warning. I'm glad all the friends are ok and the Kingdom Hall seems to have minor damage considering what went through there.

[moraavelo]

Sister Lori, I'm so sorry to hear of the Tornado EF2 hitting your neighborhood. I was wondering how my brothers and sisters in the midwest were faring. Be well.

[lgoldsmith]

Oh wow that is so scary. I live in the Houston area and the bad weather is heading this way, I can hear the thunder outside. They have us under a severe weather watch, tornados are so scary. There is practically no warning. I'm glad all the friends are ok and the Kingdom Hall seems to have minor damage considering what went through there.

I know for sure that there are a lot of people here who will be taking the watches/warnings MUCH more seriously now! Scary part is that we got NO warning. There were trained spotters out that never saw it. The fire department & emergency management department were monitoring radar and NOTHING. National Weather Service never notified them. Came out of nowhere. They said it was rain & hail wrapped and wasn't showing on radar. Right about the exact time they realized it the town lost power so no warning sirens could be sounded and the local radio station lost power so they couldn't broadcast it!

[Blueyedchanel]

Oh wow that is so scary. I live in the Houston area and the bad weather is heading this way, I can hear the thunder outside. They have us under a severe weather watch, tornados are so scary. There is practically no warning. I'm glad all the friends are ok and the Kingdom Hall seems to have minor damage considering what went through there.

I know for sure that there are a lot of people here who will be taking the watches/warnings MUCH more seriously now! Scary part is that we got NO warning. There were trained spotters out that never saw it. The fire department & emergency management department were monitoring radar and NOTHING. National Weather Service never notified them. Came out of nowhere. They said it was rain & hail wrapped and wasn't showing on radar. Right about the exact time they realized it the town lost power so no warning sirens could be sounded and the local radio station lost power so they couldn't broadcast it!

We have an emergency system in our county that calls our house and our cell phones when there is any sort of emergency/weather warnings. It was fully implemented last year when we had horrible wildfires all over our town/county, Magnolia, TX A few of the friends in our local congregations lost their homes. It made everyone very aware of emergency situations. At least with a fire you see it coming, slowly, and can get out.

[lgoldsmith]

We have that here too Chanel...that wouldn't even work since it took them all by surprise. And the fact that most everyone in town lost landline phone service and cell phone service was affected REALLY bad as well. Just THANK GOODNESS there were FEW injuries and so far no one has died.

[Greenfield]

Right about the exact time they realized it the town lost power so no warning sirens could be sounded and the local radio station lost power so they couldn't broadcast it!

Wow, I didn't know that those things were affected. I guess I hoped they had some sort of power backup. They should.

Hope everything gets back to normal soon over there.

[Rosalie4u]

Glad you are Ok!

[retroHelen]

These regular talks we have about Disaster preparedness are really 'food at the proper time' now. Humans are experiencing so much 'climate change' whatever the cause.

The tornado season is getting earlier and longer for the USA. Over here Soutern/Mildand England has had unusual drought and there have been warnings to expect more forest fires that could spread to more densly poplulated areas. French firemen, who tackle this more frequently in their country, have been over here helping with the training of our fireservice to deal with the increased wildfires.The nasty fact is that forest fires here are virtually all manmade accidents or deliberate, lightening strike as a firestarter is non-existant here, unlike other areas of the world.

Also, around here there are more companies being allowed to enact Fracking for shale gas/oil and we had earthquakes for the first time around here with minor structural damage, but it's worrying how far they will be allowed to go drilling and exploding deep underground off our coastline. While this is all going on they are considering our area for the World's deepest largest nuclear waste underground storage facility as a partner to the promised World's newest 'fast Nuclear Reactor - How would local Fracking affect this?!

All of us around the World bear witness to the fact that this system cannot go on much longer with human short range thinking in areas of Jehovah's natural beauty, such as that which I personally witness in our 'Lake District'.

[bookworm]

Our CO mentioned the places that, for one reason or another, did not have a warning before these storms hit. He tied this in with our preaching the kingdom message being a life saving work. It was a powerful talk.