july25cnn-news

Daylight Reveals Extensive Tornado
Damage in Minnesota Town.

GRANITE FALLS, Minnesota -- More severe weather was possible Wednesday in the upper Midwest, where a tornado killed one person, injured at least 14 others and destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes and buildings in Granite Falls, Minnesota.

resident

Officials say Tuesday night's twister may have destroyed as much as 20 percent of Granite Falls, a town of about 3,200 people in southwestern Minnesota.

"Just a tremendous amount of damage," Mayor Dave Smiglewski told CNN. "Cars tipped over, semis tipped over, railroad cars tipped over. A lot of debris."

Damage was so extensive that snowplows were used to clear roads so that rescue personnel and emergency vehicles could get through. Gov. Jesse Ventura called out the National Guard for security and debris cleanup.

Authorities planned to survey the Yellow Medicine County community by air to get a better picture of what happened in the area, about 125 miles west of Minneapolis.

'Some houses are completely gone'

At least five funnel clouds were spotted at one time. Smiglewski was on his way to pick up pizza for his family when a white funnel materialized from the west in a swirling cloud of debris around 6 p.m. "It was a very frightening sight, " he said.

"Our town sits in a river valley and you could see across the valley as it hit on the west end of town and mowed its way into about a third of the ... town before it just literally dissipated in thin air," the Granite Falls mayor said.

The tornado snaked up a 12-block path, tearing up some 300 to 350 homes in its wake. "Some houses are completely gone," Smiglewski said. "There's nothing left but a basement."

The central business district of Granite Falls was spared but an area on the west side was heavily damaged.

The body of one man was found beneath a pickup truck which the storm apparently tossed on top of him, according to Chuck Hardy, a dispatcher at the Yellow Medicine County sheriff's office.

damage

Daylight on Wednesday revealed extensive property damage after a tornado hit Granite Falls, Minnesota, on Tuesday

In one rural area, he said, a garage with a truck inside of it was picked up by the storm and dropped on an adjacent farm, with the truck still inside the building.

The tornado also toppled portions of a grain elevator complex before whipping trucks around like toys at the nearby United Parcel Service facility.

'It was so eerie'

Authorities say they sounded warning sirens about 10 minutes before the tornado hit.

Afterward, emergency workers went house to house through the disaster area, marking X's on the homes where the safety of the residents could be confirmed. In many places, there were no houses to mark.

As the storm swept in, 10 people and three dogs crouched in a small bathroom at the SuperAmerica gas station. "We didn't hear any sirens, nothing. The skies got real dark, real fast," cashier Amanda Velde said.

Odell Rude, a city councilman in Granite Falls, was golfing when lightning began to flash.

"I got off the course and drove up toward town," he said. "I could see insulation pieces -- some as big as blankets -- falling from the sky. ... The winds had stopped, but things were still falling. It was so eerie."

Wednesday's forecast said lightning, hail, wind gusts and isolated tornadoes were possible for the northern Plains into the Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes.

CNN affiliate KMSP, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.