Oh. My. God. What a night. What a difference from that entry a couple days ago. Iowa City got hit with several tornados last night. My tenant and I spent some time in the basement last night with the radio. My home is okay, and work is okay, but there's a lot of damage around. Several businesses were either destroyed or had roofs ripped off, and there's debris everywhere. I walked to work this morning, since downtown was some of the hardest hit, but I suppose I could have driven. Uprooted trees, downed power lines...I was out of power for about four hours. The University closed. The University hasn't closed in over ten years.

A church had it's roof ripped off, Dairy Queen is absolutely gone, and just about every car dealership in town was hit. And there were so many nutcases out on the streets last night, gawking, the emergency vehicles were having a hard time getting through. The people on the radio said it looked like there was a football game going on. There are all kinds of people out this morning with cameras. The hardest hit places were downtown, Riverside, and all the big stores southwest of town, like Menards, Wal-Mart and Cub Foods, plus all those brand-new car dealerships. There's also a sorority (one of our clients) that lost it's roof and one side of the house. There was also a major gas leak on South Gilbert street that forced an evacuation for blocks around.

Check out pictures in the Press Citizen.

Edit: A better gallery can be found at the University's page. This is the stairwell of the parking garage I park in (my house is about another block beyond that crane in the background), and I walk through this entrance every day on my way to/from work. The most poignant pictures to me are this one and this one (the aforesaid client).