Sioux City 3rd Ward Service Project

1. Where the tornado first touched down. You can see the broken tops of the trees.

2. Five homes were completely destroyed here. The two mostly intact homes you see toward the west end of the block are planned to be bulldozed. By the time we arrived, all damaged trees near the homes had been cut down & hauled away. The small white building back against the trees was the only building left intact on the block; it's just a shack, and the mayor's wife didn't even know the shack was there until the other homes disappeared. Three of the five families were away on vacation when the tornado struck.

3. The Catholic church. These grounds were the first site of the Red Cross tent, later moved to the yard across the street to the east. The church's bell tower rope looked like it had been sucked out of the belfry, as it was laying across the roof and hanging down to the ground. The church had only one window broken, a stained glass depiction of the "rich man" from Jesus' parable. The trees on the east of the church were cut down. Three of our group helped rake and sweep the grounds clean.

4. This is where most of us spent most of the morning, raking up limbs in this yard. Most of the trees in this yard were cut down.

5. Around lunchtime, we cut down the remains of a tree between these two buildings. The house had very little damage, but the building (community center?) had holes punched all through its vinyl siding. The tree was stripped bare of all leaves & limbs, so it's not even visible in this picture.

6. School gymnasium, which had the roof torn off/caved in.

7. Direction of the farm where we helped clean up the pasture. The farmer who lived out this direction lost both of his attached garages, an out building, several lengths of fencing, and the bolted-on toolbox off the bed of his pickup. He found the wrecked toolbox 1/2 mile away. A basketball in the bed of the same pickup was still there. Weird. We spent most of the afternoon here, picking up shingles, insulation, pieces of wood & glass, etc.
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