I shudder to think what the toll would have been if it happened at night when more residents would have been home.
The year before I moved away from Nebraska, my bride (girlfriend at the time) and I saw a storm level a small town outside of Lincoln Nebraska. Happened late at night.
But the sirens went off, and people sheltered in the basement. Only woman that died was an old woman who had her hearing aides out.
It was an EF4. Nothing left but the foundations. My friend’s parents lived there, and they came up from the shelter and said it was like the town was never there.
When I was a child, on Palm Sunday 1965 there was an outbreak—47 tornadoes in a six state area. Sky was green as pea soup.
Tornadoes hit Hillsdale Co. and area around Devil’s Lake, Michigan—two F4s—at least one in the evening, 21 people died in that county alone. One lady, who happen to live through the storm, had landed in Devil’s Lake and woke up there. She must have thought it was a bad dream.