http://www.break.com/index/bb7722.html

They have 3 pics from the tornado which swept through Iowa City. Just don't keep clicking next picture. I don't think some of those non-torando ones are work safe. Though the 3 that show tornado damage are.

For some other pics of what a tornado can do check out the Press Citizen's site. http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=tornado

Amazingly there weren't more injuries. There was only one death. Wish that figure was zero.
http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=D5&Date=20060417&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=604170802&Ref=PH&Profile=1079&Params=Itemnr=12

This was a small one. I'd hate to see what a F5 would do. This one was reported to be a F2.

I experienced the F5 that wiped several areas off the map in Oklahoma a few years ago. The sound was incredible, the wind was unbelieveable. After the wind died, it was eerily quiet, and then the sounds of voices calling for help. I stepped outside my house and saw that my neighbor's house next door was heavily damaged. Beyond his house there was nothing recognizeable as being a structure.

Then the sounds of fire, police and ambulane sirens began in the distance and drew closer. It all seemed surreal.... Everything was a blur until I was escorted away for some minor medical treatment. I have no idea how many people we dragged out of the debris, the debris that used to be homes.

We found several who were just shaken up, many more who were injured and those who were dead. It used to be a neighborhood where children played, people got together for Neighborhood Watch meetings and you knew most everyone around you. That was all gone in seconds.

I have since moved away, but I still drive through the neighborhood occasionally. The insurance companies have rebuilt the damaged homes and built some very nice new ones to replace those that were destroyed. But I still see streets filled with debris, I hear children crying and the silence of the dead. For many of those who lived there, it was no longer "our neighborhood". The last time I drove through there, I could only see one or two who lived there when the tornado came through. The rest have moved on as I did and have rebuilt lives elsewhere.

I see the pictures on television and on the news sites on the Internet and I can't help but relive that night, if only for a few seconds. It's one thing to see it in a picture, it's yet another to live through it. My heart goes out to those who are living through it today.

It is spooky hearing the reports on the news about this place was hit that place was hit. Watching out the back window and seeing lightning strikes light up the sky and the funnel clouds, formed or forming. While we were not in the middle of it, I did see the aftermath and see those neighborhoods I grew up in/around. As it was with Gandaar, those will be changed forever, but we do what we can to help those that need it.

In my mind, Tornadoes are more devastating psychologically than Hurricanes.
Hurricanes you can at least predict, to a certain degree. Tornadoes are random acts of violence by Nature. They may hit here, jump over a house and destroy the next 30 or so, or just hover in the air, and never touch down. They are very random, hence the psychological impact of "Why did I live, but so and so didn't?"
I've never seen 1, except on TV, and from what I understand, I wouldn't want to.

My sophmore year of college me and my gf were coming back from Chapel Hill and were driving back to campus. I had heard on the radio one of those Emergency Broadcast bleeps and it said a Tornado was around. The sky looked clear to our left and right but up ahead the way we were going it was dark. We shrugged and kept going. The closer I drove the campus the darker it got and the rain started coming sideways and stuff was flying around. I looked up and in my rearview a fire truck was on my ass I slowed down and he stayed on my ass and then motioned to me to pull over as I did he said "GET IN THE DITCH"! So we did just that. We started running to the other side of the road that had a deeper ditch and the wind lifted me off my feet and I slide in mud for about 10 feet. It was so loud and my ears were popping I couldn't hear anything except a droning noise and stuff was flying around hitting us. We made it to the ditch and she informed me she had pissed herself she was scared. In like 30 more seconds it was over. And then all of this water started running down the ditch and swept her flipflops away. We got up and surveyed the damage.

The building on the other side of the road (where I left my car) the back side was missing. We were bruised and scratched and I was coverd in mud. We got in my car and started driving to campus, we were only about 2 miles away. It was wild so much damage, 3 people died from that storm. Our libraby was closed for a while b/c a beetle bug was flown into the side of it. Our main gym had windows busted from where soccer goals were flown into them. They cancelled classes for a week (first time in the school's history) and the Red Cross came and fed us b/c we were w/o power for a while.

Now when I hear one of those emergency broadcasts or if I even hear about Tornado warnings I take them very seriously, probably overily serious. That was the scariest thing that has ever happened in my life.

It was only a little tornado too, and I'm fortunate it was only a little one.

Sorry it happened close to home Nano. At least you and yours are safe.