BLENCOE, Iowa — A tornado slammed a Boy Scout camp in the remote hills of western Iowa on Wednesday, killing at least four people and injuring 40, most of whom were on a hike when the twister struck.
All of the children had been accounted for late Wednesday, after rescuers cut their way through downed trees and debris to reach them, said Russ Lewrenson of the Mondamin Fire Department.
“There had to be sawing and stuff to get to the scene,” Lewrenson said.
A search and rescue team had been deployed to the camp near Little Sioux, Iowa Homeland Security spokeswoman Julie Tack said.
At least 40 people who were injured in the storm were being taken to area hospitals. Most of the kids who were hurt were out on a hike when the tornado hit, Lewrenson said.
There were 93 campers, ages 13 to 18, and 25 staff members at the leadership training camp, Tack said. “They were considered some of the best in the area,” Tack said.
The ranch about 40 miles north of Omaha, Neb., includes hiking trails through narrow valleys and over steep hills, a 15-acre lake and a rifle range.
“All of the buildings are gone; most of the tents are gone; most of the trees are destroyed,” Lloyd Roitstein, president of the Boy Scouts of Mid-America Council, told CNN. “You’ve got 1,800 acres of property that are destroyed right now.”
The tornado touched down as Iowa’s eastern half grappled with flooding in several of its major cities. The storm threatened to stretch Iowa’s emergency response teams even further.
Tack said officials were confident that the state’s emergency response teams could handle the crisis because western Iowa had been largely unaffected by the recent flooding.
Tornadoes also touched down in southern Minnesota and eastern Nebraska.
From Wisconsin to Missouri, officials in the storm-ravaged Midwest on Wednesday were fortifying levees with sandbags, watching weakened dams and rescuing residents from rising water.
But Iowa was bearing the brunt of it. Inmates in black-and-white striped uniforms were rescued from a jail by boat as the raging Cedar River flooded Vinton and forced evacuations in Waterloo.
“Everything is flooded — everything is up to knee-high,” said Patrice Calhoun, of Waterloo, Iowa, who rolled up her pants and waded through water to get home Wednesday morning. “You could actually swim in it.”
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