Severe storms rocked central Iowa over the weekend, leaving seven people dead, four of whom were a part of the same family sheltering in a home destroyed by a tornado, authorities said.
Two children, their father, and their grandmother were all killed after a tornado hit the home which belonged to the grandmother on Saturday afternoon, Madison County Sheriff Jason Barnes said.
Melissa Bazley, 63, had her grandchildren and children visiting her from Blue Springs, Missouri when the tornado hit. Bazley, Michael Bolger, 37, and two of his three children, 5-year-old Kenley and 2-year-old Owen, were killed in the storm.
The children's mother and daughter of Bazley, Kuri Bolger, was hospitalized after sustaining a serious injury when the tornado hit, according to a GoFundMe page set up for the family.
Just down the street from Bazley's home lived two others who were killed in the storm, 64-year-old Rodney Clark and 72-year-old Cecilia Lloyd. Then, about 54 miles southeast of Des Moines came the other death, when a different tornado struck an hour later, leaving numerous people injured.
That person's identity has not been released, but they reportedly died in an RV at a campground at Red Haw State Park, the state DNR said.
The National Weather Service rated the tornado that hit their homes as an EF-3, with peak winds of 138 miles per hour. The storms took down power lines and trees, causing power outages throughout the area.
On Sunday night, winter storms followed the tornadoes, dropping almost 5 inches of snow in central Iowa.
The storms on Saturday have cleanups planned for later in the week after the snow has had time to melt. They are estimated to have caused more than $1 billion in damage altogether, the Associated Press reported.
