Tornado's Explode over Kearney Nebraska

Tornadoes exploded over central Nebraska late Thursday afternoon, causing extensive damage in Kearney.

The storms destroyed the sprawling Expo Building at the Buffalo County Fairgrounds, home of rodeos and demolition derbies. Copeland Hall at the University of Nebraska at Kearney lost its roof.

At least 50 to 60 houses were reported damaged and more reports were pouring in.


There were no immediate reports of serious injuries, authorities said.

Much of Kearney, with a population of nearly 30,000, was without electricity. More than 1,400 customers in Aurora and York also were in the dark. Interstate 80 between Aurora and York was closed Thursday evening due to downed power lines.

Several cars from a Union Pacific train derailed.

Gov. Dave Heineman declared a state of emergency. He plans to visit Kearney in a National Guard helicopter this morning.

Later storms also hit western Iowa, where a Monona County sheriff's deputy spotted a tornado that touched down briefly about a mile east of Turin, Iowa, about 7:15 p.m.

Dave Roseberry, manager of the Kearney fairgrounds, said the Expo Building was destroyed.

"It's completely gone," he said.

Adam Eickman and fiancee Stacy Ostdiek, both 25, said they watched from the basement of a neighbor's residence as the tornado flattened their small apartment building.

"I'll never forget that sound, you could hear it doing all kinds of damage," Eickman said. "It was scary and I'm still shaken. Everything is a blur right now."

Ostdiek said debris swirled everywhere.

"We heard the windows shattering in the basement apartment and that's when we knew it wasn't going to be good," he said.

Kelly Barnes watched from his basement apartment as a car parked next to his spun around and landed on his Buick.

"The wind hit suddenly and then it was all over," he said. "It only lasted eight to 10 seconds, but that's all it took to destroy everything. Everything just turned black. Sand and dirt were flying everywhere. It was very eerie."

Carroll Sheldon, who lives on a hill in northeast Kearney, watched from the deck on his house as the storm gathered about 15 miles southwest of town. He saw four or five funnel clouds form.

The funnels "formed and formed, and then they sort of blended together when they came toward town. Then the wind and rain hit and you couldn't see anything," Sheldon said.

He estimated winds at 100 mph.

Several semi-trailer trucks overturned on I-80.

Mark Becker, a Nebraska Public Power District spokesman, said a power line wrapped around a toppled semi. Officials told the driver to stay inside the truck until the line could be de-energized.

Darren Lewis, the emergency management director for Buffalo County, said the northeast area of Kearney appeared to sustain the most damage. The UNK campus is in west Kearney.

Laura Larsen, 22, who recently graduated from UNK and lives nearby, said the roof was missing from a building in the Stratford apartments in the northeast part of town. The clubhouse roof collapsed, and cars were piled on one another in the parking lot.

At the fairgrounds, Roseberry and co-worker Marc Zelzany were inside the Expo Building when the storm demolished it. Neither man was hurt.

Wind took Roseberry's pickup and threw it into the building. "A corner of the building is laying on the truck now," he said.

Tornado researchers expect the 2008 tornado season to join 1998, 1974 and 1953 as among the busiest and deadliest years the country has seen.

The number of tornadoes so far in 2008 - 1,191 - is nearly double what it was for the same period in 2007, said Harold Brooks, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla.

At this time in 2007, 659 tornadoes had been reported. In the past 10 years, the average number of tornadoes has been 1,254.

Tornadoes in 2008 also have proved to be deadlier than those in previous years - 111 people already had died this year from U.S. tornadoes as of Sunday. By the end of May 2007, 74 people had been killed by U.S. tornadoes.