The sixties seemed to be the real hey-day for tornadoes in the Midwest. I recall, I believe I was eleven or twelve, watching a tornado coming down the road. Since those old country gravel roads were raised high, with the deep ditches that were on both sides, the road was the highest point. And, that sucker just stuck to the road. It took me a while to stop staring and run to the basement. Of course, the tree damage, in our front yard, was enormous ... and the clean up was quite the chore. We were one of the few, in that area, that had a chain saw .... So, after we cleaned up our limbs, off to help neighbor after neighbor ....

In 1966, Belmont, Iowa, was struck. The entire downtown business district was levelled to the ground .. and, if memory serves me, close to 1/3 of that town's houses were demolished. One of my parent's long-time friends owned a grain elevator, in Belmont, which fortunately was not hit.

Nothin' new about tornadoes.