fall 2008 - Northwestern College
fall 2008 - Northwestern College
fall 2008 - Northwestern College
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When winds became too strong to continue a card game with<br />
fellow campers, junior Carrie Manifold and her family<br />
thought they’d check in with neighbors back home in<br />
Parkersburg, Iowa, 20 miles west, to see if the storm had passed their<br />
way.<br />
Carrie’s mom, Diane, dialed the number and heard screaming. Their<br />
friends were trapped in the basement by what was left of their house,<br />
they told her. Through a window, this frightened family could see a<br />
neighbor lying on the ground where her home used to be.<br />
Between 4:45 and 6 p.m. on Sunday, May 25, an EF5 tornado with<br />
winds at an estimated 205 mph devastated northeast Iowa, taking the<br />
lives of eight people and injuring 70 others. The storm blew away a third<br />
of Parkersburg’s buildings, 350 in all. When Carrie’s father, Tom, the<br />
city’s chief EMT and a gas/electric serviceman, got in the car to head<br />
back, he didn’t know if his house would be among those destroyed.<br />
He reached the site of his home of 24 years to find only a wall and<br />
part of a staircase sitting on an open foundation.<br />
But right where the garage had been, Tom’s work boots were waiting.<br />
Taking no time to dwell on his own loss, he changed out of his camping<br />
sandals and began helping everyone else.<br />
Lost and Found<br />
“I’d never seen something so terrible in my life,” says Tom, well<br />
acquainted with the “before” picture of the small town of 1,900 people.<br />
“It looked like someone had come through there with fighter jets and<br />
dropped bombs.”<br />
Amidst all the wreckage, the Manifolds prayed they’d find a small<br />
blue booklet. Carrie was scheduled to leave for a <strong>Northwestern</strong> Summer<br />
of Service trip to Bahrain in just four days. How would she ever find her<br />
passport?<br />
Relief comes to student’s family<br />
after Parkersburg tornado<br />
BY AMY SCHEER<br />
AP PHOTO/KEVIN SANDERS<br />
“I’d never seen<br />
something so<br />
terrible in my life.<br />
It looked like<br />
someone had come<br />
through there with<br />
fighter jets and<br />
dropped bombs.”<br />
14<br />
<strong>fall</strong> <strong>2008</strong>