Midwest Storms Flip Cars

Powerful storms that rolled across the Midwest brought heavy rain, strong winds and unleashed several tornadoes, damaging homes and businesses, tossing railcars off their tracks and knocking out power to thousands.

In southeastern Minnesota, daylight Thursday revealed heavy destruction in the town of Austin, where vehicles were thrown about, homes were heavily damaged and power lines were knocked down. A few minor injuries were reported.

Austin Mayor Tom Stiehm said it appeared up to five twisters had hit Wednesday night. The National Weather Service said one tornado on the north side of town was about 10 miles long and lasted for more than 20 minutes. The weather service said that at its worst point, the twister registered an EF2 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, meaning it generated winds between 111 mph and 135 mph.

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"It kind of developed on top of us," Stiehm said. "It just kind of — boom, it was just there and the intensity got real bad."

Mike Schuster, who lives in north Austin, told the Austin Daily Herald that he was on his deck when a tornado came out of nowhere, bowing one side of his house, destroying his shed and flattening his trees.

In southern Nebraska, a tornado ravaged a house near Aurora, knocked down power poles and overturned about a dozen railroad cars. High winds damaged a nearby pet products plant, the National Weather Service said.

Jeff Juzyk and his wife, Stacie, had just put their four children to bed when the power went out in their home about five miles west of Aurora. Jeff Juzyk looked outside and saw the top of a dark, narrow cloud. He and his wife rushed their children into the basement.

"I could feel the house just blowing apart," he said.

On Thursday, their roof and one wall were gone, the porch had collapsed and all the windows had blown in.

The National Weather Service said a tornado that struck farther west in Buffalo County damaged a Quonset hut and at least two farms.