A tornado is being blamed for a train derailment in western Iowa early this morning.
Crawford County Emergency Management Coordinator Greg Miller says several container cars jumped the tracks after 2 A.M. near the town of Westside.
“It was a pretty good-sized train that’s got all different kinds of stuff on it,” Miller says. “It actually sucked a couple three of the containers out of the cars themselves. The engineers swear it was a tornado.” Miller says the train was carrying some hazardous material, but no leaks are reported and there were no injuries.
He says there are reports of damage and power outages across the region. “In the towns, we’ve got a lot of trees down and the utilities are cleaning them up,” Miller says. “Power lines are down here and there. Charter Oak was out of power. Dows City had power outages and Denison had outages. They’re working on getting them restored.”
The strongest reported winds are from Denison at 87-miles-an-hour with scattered reports of large hail.
By Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic