The southwestern portion of McDonough County was rocked Friday evening by a EF1 tornado that touched down in several places, causing widespread destruction.
Colmar experienced the most devastation when the Western Grain Marketing bins were ripped from their foundations and scattered across the railroad tracks. One collapsed bin lay across N 450th Rd (Colmar Blacktop), closing the road. In addition, a metal building also sustained damage. One of the railroad crossing signal units was slightly damaged, but by Saturday morning, the tracks had been cleared for train traffic. Route 61 was open through the village.
A few miles east of Colmar on N 450th, power lines draped across the road because an electrical tower in a field had been toppled.
As a result, the county highway department closed the road near E 200th St. In addition, a series of wooden power poles were snapped off along the railroad tracks about a quarter of a mile north of Colmar. A signal was completely flattened at the crossing along N 500th Rd. Further east along the blacktop, significant wind damage ripped roofs off buildings at the Allen residence and at the Lovena Mullett residence.
Several pine trees at the Dale Cromer residence were snapped off causing some minor damage to the roof while a couple of other trees were uprooted.
However, the most significant damage occurred at the intersection of N 450th Rd and Berlin Road. The roof of a metal machine building on the Fred Caspall property was completely ripped off while another wooden shed was completely demolished, strewing roof panels and shattered timbers to the east into the Archer-Bethel Cemetery. Much of the twisted metal lodged in the tree line just beyond the cemetery and far into the pasture.
Several farm implements in both buildings were covered with roof debris. Several grain wagons were upended and lay on their sides.
In the cemetery, about a dozen large stone monuments were toppled from their foundations, some of them encased in tin roofing. Lumber fragments were scattered in a 50-foot wide path from the driveway to the eastern fence line, gouging out divots and digging channels in the soggy cemetery ground. Fences on both sides of the cemetery were flattened by debris. The south half of the cemetery grounds were relatively untouched as were the plots and monuments across the ravine. Cleanup efforts are hampered by the saturated grounds.
The Bethel Baptist Church suffered only a broken storm window and some blown off shingles. However, the Fross residence diagonal to the church had several damaged trees and damage to a porch. Nearby, the Lacey residence experienced major damage to a large metal building, completely ripping off the south side and scattering metal in the pasture to the east.
