Family, friends and volunteers are joining clean-up efforts in a number of Iowa cities today following severe storms which cruised through northern Iowa Monday morning and through southern Iowa Monday evening.
“You always hear about small towns coming together. Yesterday was a perfect example ’cause everybody just came,” says Gary Husman, the mayor of Marcus, Iowa. “They came with skid loaders, they came with trailers, they came with tractors — and lots of saws.”
The storm hit in Marcus at about 6 a.m. Monday.
“We had some just horrific winds through here. We had complete streets that were impassable,” Husman says. “…I’ve never seen wind take that many trees down.”
At least 10 homes were damaged.
“One gentleman had five trees in his parking fall and they all fell on his roof. His roof was pretty much disconnected from his house,” Husman says. “A couple of other gentleman had their porches ripped off.”
Husman saw between 10 and 20 people helping in each block of his town that saw damage.
“We haven’t got it all cleaned up. We’ve got a long way to go,” Husman says. “It was unbelievable, the people, the response we got, the farmers coming in. The people don’t live in the town, but they have friends and family here.”
The 2010 Census found more than 1100 people living in Marcus, which is about 17 miles west of Cherokee.
(Reporting by Dennis Morrice, KLEM, Le Mars)