Officials survey storm damage in Iowa County, assess whether tornado touched down

IOWA COUNTY, Wis. (WMTV) - The National Weather Service and emergency management officials surveyed damage in Iowa County Thursday from a storm that struck the area on Wednesday night.

A salt shed in Ridgeway was destroyed in the storm, one of multiple structures damaged in Iowa County.

Officials are assessing the damage and working to determine whether a tornado hit the area.

“It’s kind of like a crime scene where we’re trying to picture, if this is a tornado, it’s more of an upward force, so were things thrown up into the air, or does it look like things were more pushed down and that it was straight line winds,” Tim Halbach, Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service-Milwaukee said. “With this, it could’ve been a mix of both and that’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

Recent storms have complicated the assessment process.

“Trying to figure out what was storm damage from yesterday or last week or storm damage in April when we had storms, because we had severe storms in April as well, so it’s been a challenge determining what is recent, what is past,” Iowa County Emergency Management Director Amanda Gardner said. “We try to make sure we’re documenting everything, but it’s impossible to be in every place, especially when it’s so rural and the hillsides are blocking some of the path.”

Significant tree damage, destroyed barns and downed wires were among the most common issues reported.

Officials said no one has been hurt, but they received a few reports of livestock killed.

Emergency management officials urged people to remain alert despite the storm passing.

“This has been a very active year for severe weather,” Halbach said. “It seems like every weather system we’ve had, the timing works out that we’ve had something happen. So we’re just glad there haven’t been any injuries or worse, but we’re still at the beginning part of the season. So keep the guards up as we go through, and just be ready to know if something is in the forecast.”

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