May 27, 2008 - Parkersburg, IA Tornado

We stayed in Picher until yesterday. The situation there was about as stable as possible. Reports started coming in of an EF5 tornado that ripped apart Parkersburg, IA. This is the largest tornado of the year so far, and it was a direct hit on the city. I decided they were going to need our help. We left immediately and arrived in Parkersburg as the sun was coming up.

Tim and I walked into what was left of the volunteer firehouse. The walls and roof were ripped off and all that was left of the garage were steel ribs. There was a lot of commotion and all of a sudden I heard someone scream, “Disaster Recover Solutions!” I heard it screamed again as a man dressed in a police officer’s uniform came around the corner of a fire truck. I identified myself as the person he was looking for. He said, “Are you the guy that owns that large black truck out front?” I said, “Yes, and we are here to help any way you need us.”

He said, “Follow me.” As we walked he said, “My name is Chris Luhring. I have lived here my whole life, and my city is destroyed. I have family who has died, I have friends who have died, and I don’t even know where to bury them. My office in city hall is gone, all the file cabinets, safes, computers, everything is gone. Can you help me?” I said, “Yes, show us where city hall used to be, and we can get to work on finding whatever we can.”

He showed us where to start, and we began digging. We began to pick at the pile of debris with our crane. The tornado was so powerful that houses and cars from blocks away were thrown into city hall – which meant parts of city hall may be lying blocks away as well. Our search went beyond the city hall lot and, according to Chris, we recovered 80 percent of their vital documents. As we stood amidst the rubble with bags of papers, the county clerk we were working with said, “Well, I guess we have to dig graves now.” I explained to him we could use our skid steer to help.

So just a few hours ago the First Response Team did something I never thought we would do: dig graves with the local high school kids using shovels. It was so strange because I never thought I would do something like that in my life. Tim and the kids worked hard, especially on one that needed to be dug double wide for a husband and wife to be buried together.

Chris introduced us to Jason Johnson, the sheriff of the county. They offered to get us a hotel, and thanked us for coming to help. We will meet them tomorrow at sunrise in Parkersburg to again help out in any way we can.