‘We got a hell of a mess’

MINGO — Nick Poulson was sitting in his easy chair around lunchtime on Monday when an enormous tree branch collapsed onto his roof, plunging water into the home he and his wife, Marian, had lived in since 1993, the same year Iowa experienced an infamous and an extremely devastating flood.

But this was not the work of a flood. It was a powerful wind storm, known as a derecho, that had swept through Central Iowa and damaged several crops, homes and other structures. The Poulsons heard “a lot of banging and scraping” from all the torn tree limbs. They wanted to flee to their crawlspace, but couldn’t.

Why not? Because the only way to access the crawlspace was on the side of the house where the tree limb had fallen down. Marian Poulson said for the longest time she and her husband had wanted to build a storm shelter near the back of the house. Thankfully, the two walked away from the storm unscathed.

Since the couple had no power, they couldn’t track the storm by watching the TV news stations. Nick and Marian Poulson, of Mingo, remembered taking a peak outside when the winds were still blowing. They watched as their chain-linked swing, which was affixed to one branch, flung helplessly and perfectly horizontal.

“All of a sudden it was here,” Nick Poulson said.

Marian Poulson added, “I got on the phone with our insurance agent even before the storm was over and told them that I knew we were going to have damage.”

When the skies cleared, Nick Poulson surveyed the damage. The elm tree, which was once three times the size of his house, was mangled to pieces. Marian Poulson worried her bird bath would have been pulverized, but there it stood. But she suspected her garbage can, on the other hand, was “in the next county.”

Marian Poulson’s garden was no more. Whatever was growing there was cut down by flying tree limbs and dangerous winds moving as fast as 106 mph in some parts of the state. Farmers’ crops, too, were completely ravaged by the wind storm. Some cornfields near Mingo were laid flat.

At first, the Poulsons thought it was a tornado that ravaged through their neighborhood, which is located near the Mingo Fire Department.

“We got a hell of a mess out here,” Nick Poulson said.

By Tuesday, Nick Poulson moved from his easy chair to a lawn chair in his driveway. The evening before, the Poulsons’ sons and two others managed to clear some of the more heavy debris and place tarps over the holes in the roof. The couple stayed the night in their home, while the branch laid suspended.

In town, the cleanup efforts continued on a day after the storm cleared. Mark Carpenter, of Mingo, was busy clearing a yard of a neighbor of his who was on vacation. Thick tree branches surrounded a flagpole on the front lawn. When enough was cleared, Carpenter hoisted the American Flag to the top of the pole.

“Fly, baby, fly,” he said.

Looking at the debris below his feet, the Mingo native said he has seen damage like this before — “just not here” in Mingo. Carpenter said “everything is just tore up,” including one of the grain bins near the Heartland Co-op. Reduced to a pile of twisted metal, the wreckage was partly barricaded off by yellow caution tape.

“I could see it from the top of my hill,” Carpenter said. “I got a great big tree in my back yard that just uprooted. It uprooted and it’s laying down. Big ol’ hole in my yard. It missed the house. Everything missed the house. My camper up there slid over off the jacks, so I gotta get that taken care of.”

On top of everything else in his neighborhood, too. That is how Carpenter is going to be spending his days off from work, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s gotta get done,” he said. “Everything else can be put aside.”

Anthony Michael and Selena Allen, both of Newton, were in their trailer park north of town when the storm hit. Allen, too, heard a lot of rattling and shaking inside he trailer. The experience was so intense Michael said it is something he does not want to go through again.

“It was like something out of a move,” Allen said.

Michael added, “It’s like living ‘Twister.’ The only difference is there was an actual tornado in ‘Twister,’ versus the tornado-speed winds.”

Stan Kirchhoff, of Newton, saw the aftermath of those forceful winds at the First Lutheran Church. The chairman of the church’s property committee was mowing the property when the wind started to pick up. Kirchhoff left before he could see the back roof of the church fly off its hinges and land in the street.

On the way home and then back to the church, Kirchhoff recalled having to drive around several downed trees. From what he could see on the inside, the church was in good shape. On the outside, First Lutheran Church lost several tiles and light poles; the roof took with it chunks of concrete, metal and wooden planks.

“Never had damage like this before,” Kirchhoff said. “Never.”

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at
641-792-3121 ext. 6560 or
cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com