Katie Buchanan’s 10-year-old daughter was sitting on the living room couch by the window in their Urbandale home on Monday when a patio table hurled through their wall and nearly hit her.
Buchanan, who’d been making dinner, grabbed her child and their three dogs and rushed them to the basement. When they came back upstairs, their neighborhood was in shambles.
"Everybody was outside screaming and crying,” she said. “The way this whole street looked is something you just don't imagine. It was sad.”
A derecho-spun tornado preliminarily rated as an EF1 caused damage Monday along a path from Urbandale southeast into Windsor Heights and northwestern Des Moines, according to the National Weather Service.
The tornado was on the ground for only 10 minutes once it touched down near Meredith Drive east of Northwest Urbandale Drive at 5:37 p.m. But in that time it traveled more than 7 miles , crossing Douglas Avenue, Hickman Road, University Avenue, Interstate 235 near 42nd Street, and Grand Avenue before it dissipated northwest of the Raccoon River.
The tornado was estimated to be a maximum of 300 yards wide and had peak winds from 100 to 105 mph.
The National Weather Service did not report any injuries or deaths. Urbandale said one person suffered a leg injury, but that it likely occurred during cleanup efforts rather than during the storm.
But the tornado's winds left plenty of damage, toppling trees over homes, roads and power lines. At the peak, 10,000 people were without power Monday night.
Buchanan said the worst of the tornado in her neighborhood couldn’t have lasted more than 20 seconds, but the impacts were “life-changing.” The heavy winds bulldozed the wall of their enclosed patio, sent a tree through her car and battered her fence, but she said it's her daughter’s well-being she worries for the most.
Buchanan said her daughter shouted prayers from the basement. Her mother tidied up the home as best she could before bringing her back upstairs after the storm. And when it was all over, Buchanan said, her daughter ran outside and belted a "Sing 2" rendition of “I’m Still Standing” before checking on all of her friends in the neighborhood.
"I think the trauma on my daughter is probably the worst thing for me to experience ... but we'll get through it. What else can we do?"
Nearly all of Buchanan’s neighbors along 80th Street in Urbandale also saw some storm damage Monday night. The tornado snapped trees in half, shattered windows and ripped roofs off. Insulation scraps were strewn like confetti across a front lawn.
More: What is a derecho? Storms that hit Iowa, Midwest on Monday were part of one.
But neighbors immediately got to work on the cleanup.
Multiple neighbors, including Buchanan and Julie Good, spent hours trying to get in touch with neighbor Chris Erschen, who was vacationing about two hours away with his family at Twin Lakes State Park, west of Fort Dodge.
Buchanan eventually got him on the phone and walked through his house to shut off his water and gas and collect valuables like family photos, watches and keepsakes. Neighbors on the block pitched in, picking up fallen branches and debris.
“I don’t know how to say thank you to them,” Erschen said.
Monday's tornado brought neighbors together as they surveyed damage
Some residents still were without power and internet service into Tuesday as the tornado tore some power poles from the ground. The storm also knocked out phone service for Windsor Heights City Hall, though service was restored Tuesday afternoon, according to City Clerk Adam Strait.
Urbandale spokesperson Derek Zarn said Tuesday morning that initial assessments Monday night showed more than 10 homes in the city had been damaged, including some with "significant damage." But that's certainly an undercount based on damage Des Moines Register reporters observed throughout the city on Monday and Tuesday. Zarn had said daylight on Tuesday might turn up more damage and that the city did not yet have an exact count.
He said the worst damage was concentrated between 70th and 75th streets, with "substantial damage" in the 80th Street and Dennis Drive area.
On side streets near 72nd Street in Urbandale, fallen trees had damaged the roofs of homes, smashed the windshield of a parked car and blocked roads, including Roseland Drive near Karen Acres Elementary School.
Mike Marcovis said of the tree fallen over his house on Elm Drive, “It sucks, because I work out of my home, too.” Limbs crowding his front yard and lying over the house had damaged the front gutter and broken a window.
On Oak Brook Drive, most of a tree had fallen and crushed the southeast corner of the front of Bill Engelbrecht’s home of about 12 years. Engelbrecht said it all happened so fast that he hadn’t even heard the tree fall. He had just returned from getting groceries when the storm hit, though the pint of melting birthday cake-flavored ice cream he was enjoying came from his neighbors across the street.
Nearly every house on 59th Street in the Merle Hay neighborhood of Des Moines saw some storm damage. Windows were shattered and entire trees were down. Wine glasses in hand, residents wandered up and down the street, comparing damage and chatting.
Alex Colby, who paid off her car two weeks ago, saw her car windows broken and the roof cleaved down the middle by a tree. Across the street, Emily McGuire and Jonathan Diffley had multiple power lines down in their backyard.
It was a home-warming party of sorts; the couple just moved in in January.
“The fun part about all of this is that this is a very interesting way to meet your neighbors,” said McGuire, gesturing to the unofficial block party. “Everybody out here today, we met because of the storm.”
More: A tornado ripped the roof of a Des Moines apartment. A resident captured it on video.
Simon Goheen, of nearby Simon’s restaurant, was responsible for the alcohol. He was already handing out wine to the restaurant's neighbors less than an hour after the storm rolled through. The restaurant was packed, and guests were allowed to shelter in place until they felt ready to leave — with or without settling their tab.
They can pay whenever, he said.
“What’s important is that everybody’s OK,” he said.
Monday night's Des Moines City Council meeting was postponed until next week due to a tornado warning that forced people to take shelter in the basement of Des Moines City Hall. City Manager Scott Sanders announced the council meeting will resume July 22 at 7:30 a.m.
More: Despite deadly tornadoes, no place in Iowa requires storm shelters in homes, apartments
Neighbors spent Tuesday starting to clean up fallen trees, debris
Neighbors on 45th Street in Des Moines' Waveland Park neighborhood got to work Tuesday morning hauling fallen tree branches into piles, raking leaves and debris. Along the street, power lines were tangled into trees, and poles were knocked over. Crews blocked off the end of the road next to Theodore Roosevelt High School because of a split tree blocking the street.
Jon Pugh was watching the news when a tree in his front yard toppled onto his house.
"It was terrifying. It was wild," he said.
Neighbors and friends gathered Monday night and Tuesday morning to help clear his back and front yards.
The tornado downed trees at Roosevelt High School but did not cause any significant damage to the building, Des Moines Public Schools spokesperson Phil Roeder said Tuesday.
There was substantial tree damage at Glendale Cemetery, and the cemetery is closed to the public while crews continue to assess the damage and take care of any hazards, according to a news release from the city.
On Tuesday morning, city of Des Moines crews used construction equipment to clear pine needles and other debris between the rows of headstones. A window at the cemetery's front office was boarded. At Waveland Golf Course across the street, crews used chainsaws to clear fallen trees.
Visitors and volunteers were asked not to enter the cemetery until after the work is complete. Reopening is expected on Thursday. When the conditions allow for volunteers to safely enter the cemetery, opportunities to help with cleanup will be posted at DSM.city/Volunteer .
Cities also are putting cleanup plans into action for residents who need debris removed. More information for each community is available at:
Derecho that spawned Monday's tornado continued east across the Midwest
The derecho that produced the tornado formed in the Des Moines area caused damage from Iowa to Indiana, according to a post on X from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The National Weather Service in Chicago issued 13 tornado warnings in the Chicago area on Monday night. As of early Tuesday morning, seven tornadoes in the area had been confirmed . WGN9 reported there were many downed trees and homes damaged, leaving thousands without power and major roads closed due to debris or downed power lines.
A derecho is a type of severe thunderstorm event , according to NWS . It’s a “widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms.”
Iowans likely remember a derecho that ripped through the Midwest on Aug. 10, 2020 , causing $11 billion in damage — the most expensive thunderstorm in history. A large area from central Iowa to north central Illinois saw wind gusts of 70 to 80 mph, with gusts of more than 100 mph in a few areas.
Monday's derecho came nearly two months after severe thunderstorms swept from central Nebraska through Iowa and into northwest Illinois on May 24. That also was classified as a derecho event, according to NWS Quad Cities .
Des Moines Register reporters Addison Lathers and Paris Barraza also contributed to this report.
Phillip Sitter covers the western suburbs for the Des Moines Register. Phillip can be reached via email at psitter@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @pslifeisabeauty.
Virginia Barreda is the Des Moines city government reporter for the Register. She can be reached at vbarreda@dmreg.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: 'We'll get through it': In Des Moines, Urbandale, residents band together after tornado
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