OMAHA, Neb. (CN) — Tornadoes swept through eastern Nebraska and western Iowa on Friday afternoon, wrecking multiple homes, businesses and farmsteads in the Omaha and Lincoln areas.
The Nebraska Emergency Management Agency reported extensive damage in the suburban Elkhorn neighborhood of west Omaha, with local media publishing photos of demolished homes shorn of their roofs, wrecked cars and splintered trees with their limbs ripped off.
Extensive damage was reported in and around the Omaha suburb of Bennington as well.
"The communities of Elkhorn and Bennington have received multiple reports of damage. Multiple homes destroyed. That’s where probably most of the damage is," Van DeWald, lead meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Omaha, told Courthouse News early Friday evening. “I don’t know that any other communities have been directly hit, other than Elkhorn and Bennington."
There were no immediate reports of deaths in the aftermath of the storms. But the National Weather Service has predicted multiple rounds of severe weather well into the weekend.
The staff of the Weather Service office — located in Valley, Nebraska, very close to the path of the tornadoes — was still catching its breath Friday evening and much remained undetermined. But based on video DeWald had seen posted online, the storm system consisted of, "very large tornadoes. Very large, destructive, multiple-vortex tornadoes,” he said.
Storm chasers posted dramatic video of at least one tornado crossing Interstate 80, the main throughfare between Omaha and Lincoln and a prime six-lane commuting route. The Lancaster County Sheriff's Office, where Lincoln is located, implored motorists to stay off the freeway. Roughly 55 miles separates the two cities, the Cornhusker State's largest.
The Omaha Public Power District, which provides power to much of the eastern quarter of the state, reported that 8,111 customers were without power as of 6:35 p.m.
As of early Friday evening, Omaha remained in a flash flood warning, with life-threatening tornadoes menacing the cities of Harlan and Tennant in Shelby County, in western Iowa.
In northwest Missouri, several communities, including the cities of Rockville, Maryville and Rich Hill, were under tornado warnings, as were communities in northeast Oklahoma. Tornado watches extended from northern Nebraska and central Iowa south to Arkansas and Texas.
In Nebraska, data quantifying what was expected to be extensive damage remained unavailable in the immediate aftermath of Friday's mayhem.
“It's going to take a long time to assess this and get the exact numbers,” DeWald said.
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