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"So I went to close the windows," said Allegra Wakest, 41, "and I saw this massive piece of sheet metal hurtling through the sky, end over end, right past me."
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Joe Potter of Viola, Wis., walks out of what was his living room before the storms tore the roof off his house. Potter was laying on a couch in the room minutes before the storm struck.
Erik Daily |
It was aimed straight at the parking lot, straight at Wakest's brown Ford Taurus. "The car alarm was going crazy, honking," she said, "but you could hardly hear it above all the other commotion. It sounded like Viola was being bombed."
Wakest and her partner, 36-year-old Eddy Nix, watched the slab sail just over the Taurus and crash to earth.
The car emerged with a busted mirror and minor scratches, more reminiscent of a parking lot scrape than an encounter with the estimated 157 mph winds that roared through Viola, a village of about 675 people in the Kickapoo Valley, 12 miles southeast of Viroqua.
The Thursday afternoon tornado and thunderstorms hit without much warning and tore through the village, snapping trees in half, reducing a year-old pole barn to splinters and ripping the second story off the village's flea market.
As of Friday, more than 137 homes were confirmed damaged, 19 of them severely, along with a dozen businesses, said Phil Stittleburg, fire chief in nearby La Farge, Wis., and operations officer for the Viola cleanup. Stittleburg said an initial —and probably conservative — damage estimate exceeds $1 million.
Remarkably, no one died, and only one injury was reported: Sgt. Dane Knaeble with the Richland County Sheriff's Department, who was home nursing minor back injuries after sliding off the road and crashing during the storm, said Viola police Chief Robert Mika.
"It's so great to see all of you out here to help out," Gov. Jim Doyle said Friday to the more than 200 volunteers in Viola who had come from as far away as Cedarburg, Wis. Doyle declared a state of emergency in Richland and Dane counties.
Cleanup began within hours after the storm and continued until dusk Thursday, then resumed early Friday. Chad Schiefelbein, 18, a volunteer with the Hillsboro Fire Department, was among the first to arrive after the storm.
He returned Friday morning with his 26-inch chain saw. Crews went through town, slicing up downed trees. By 3 p.m., his 12-person crew had dismantled about 35 trees, Schiefelbein said. "And we're not half done for the day," he said. "There's not a tree in town that isn't broken."
Village President Dick Johannesen, who spent the tornado huddled beneath his 14-foot boat, described Viola as "just a plain, small town, full of hunters and anglers, so we lie to each other a lot, you know."
But he marveled at the rapid response. "These volunteers didn't show up to eat doughnuts," he said. "They came to work."
Vernon County
Evelyn Myhre was listed in fair condition Friday afternoon at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center, a day after her family's home was shredded by a tornado on Hwy. KK near the small community of Esofea, Wis., in central Vernon County. Family members believe Myhre was inside the home when the tornado hit. They found her dazed in the rubble, much of which had been strewn into a cornfield. She had a deep cut to her head and a back injury.
Monroe County
Homeowners and neighbors on Grosbeak Avenue near Tomah, Wis., worked Friday to clean their yards after a tornado touched down in parts of the towns of Tomah and Byron. The storm left trusses and plywood from a home under construction hanging from the trees, and scattered shingles, lumber, tar paper and other materials, said Cynthia Engelke, Monroe County Emergency Services coordinator. About 14 to 15 youths from the Badger Challenge camp were expected to help with the cleanup today, Engelke said. Because the county wasn't declared a disaster area, liability is an issue, but Badger Challenge has insurance, she said.
Trempealeau County
Hwy. T, known as French Road, near Galesville, Wis., was closed temporarily Thursday after heavy rainfall caused parts of the pavement to crumble, Galesville Police said Friday. The city in southern Trempealeau County also had some street flooding, police said.
