An entire rural community is left in shock Sunday after a tornado ripped through several farms and homes.
The twister was first reported at 2:42 p.m. about three miles Northeast of Riceville and according to those living in the area it’s expected to have been on the ground for at least ten miles destroying everything in its path.
Entire farms have just been destroyed including houses, barns and sheds.
Families are being forced to collect as many of their belongings as they can and find new places to stay.
The only positive news coming from this is that the community is so strong between Riceville and Chester, that there are a lot of people offering their support.
Gary Bunnes owns a farm near where the tornado touched down. He said, “In the blink of an eye these people have lost everything they have had.”
Mike Brunner is another rural Riceville resident who witnessed the happenings. He added,“I was looking to the Southwest and I saw this cloud form going every which way and next thing I knew, it was a tornado forming.”
The exact details regarding the intensity and severity of the storm are still being determined, but for the people Northeast of Riceville, they knew it was bad.
Brunner said, “We all headed towards the basement, we didn’t have very long to decide what we were doing.”
One of the worst hit areas was the Felper Farm, and Todd Felper, who was inside the house when the tornado hit, says he’ll never forget what happened.
“I was sitting in the Living Room watching TV and it started getting really windy and it started pouring and I couldn’t even see out the windows and all of a sudden I heard a window break, and I was waiting for a big calm down because I was thinking maybe a tornado, but there was no calm down, it came right in with the rain and before I knew it I turned right around and headed right for the basement and the windows blew out and I got into the basement with all the dust and installation and everything blew up and then it was over before I knew it really,” he said.
Even though the twister might have been moving quickly, it didn’t take long to leave a line of destruction.
Felper added, “I looked out the window and saw all building were gone and it still hasn’t sunk in yet.”
Even for those who have witnessed storms of this magnitude in the past, the damage is still hard to believe.
Mike Brunner said, “I’ve seen tornados before and this is pretty bad, about as bad as I’ve seen it.”
And now one of the biggest challenges of all begins.
Gary Bunnes said, “The debris, the power lines down, they will have days of putting power lines up and restoring power to our area.”
There was another individual who lost his roof Sunday afternoon and he said the tornado came so fast, he didn’t even have time to get out of his living room recliner.
He said all he was able to go was grab on to the arms of the chair and hold on so he wouldn’t get thrown around and he was just lucky enough to survive.
No deaths have been reported to this point from the storm, but at least one person was taken out of their home in a stretcher and their condition is unknown.
KIMT will continue to have updates throughout week covering the destruction.
