A powerful tornado touched down in northeastern Wisconsin on Monday and stayed on the ground for over 20 minutes, hollowing out homes, hurling vehicles and taking down power lines as it left communities in ruins.
No fatalities or missing persons have been reported following the twister’s destructive run through the Fox Cities region — an area that includes Appleton, Menasha and Neenah, located roughly 100 miles northwest of Milwaukee. Officials have not released a total injury count, though at least one eyewitness reported watching rescue workers pull someone from a collapsed building who appeared to be seriously hurt.
According to the National Weather Service, the tornado made contact with the ground during the early afternoon hours Monday and traveled approximately 12 miles before lifting. At its widest point, the twister stretched nearly a mile across. Residents had received advance warnings to seek shelter before it struck.
The storm ripped roofs from homes and commercial buildings, overturned vehicles, sheared off the tops of trees, and knocked down utility poles. As of Tuesday, more than 15,000 customers in Winnebago and Outagamie counties remained without electricity, according to PowerOutage.us. Utility crews could take several days to fully restore power to affected areas.
Emergency shelters were set up for people displaced by the storm. A boil water advisory was also put in place for a portion of a water system in Fox Crossing after it lost pressure.
“All indications are that this was a devastating system that has caused extensive damage,” said Tom Nelson, the Outagamie County executive.
The National Weather Service said the tornado was generated by a large storm system that swept through the Great Lakes region, driven by an accumulation of heat and humidity.
Meteorologist Roy Eckberg with the weather service said damage assessments were ongoing Tuesday. He noted that while tornadoes do occur in that part of the state, a storm of this magnitude is uncommon.
“To get that kind of tornado is pretty rare in northeast Wisconsin, but they do happen from time to time,” Eckberg said. He also pointed out that the tornado’s southward track was unusual, as most twisters in the region tend to move east or northeast.
Preliminary analysis suggests the tornado reached EF3 strength, meaning it carried winds between 136 and 165 mph, the weather service confirmed.
Heather Schroeder, who works near a street corner in Menasha, described hearing the sounds of cracking and popping as the tornado dismantled a laundromat, bakery and tavern at the intersection. She said cars were flipped upside down and a gas leak was discovered at the laundromat.
Schroeder also witnessed rescue workers removing someone from one of the destroyed buildings, though it was unclear whether that person had survived. “There’s nothing left,” she said.
Aerial footage captured Tuesday showed homes in Menasha stripped of their roofs or completely gutted by the storm.
Greg Van Driest was at his workplace in downtown Appleton when the sky turned an eerie, pitch-black color in the middle of the day. “The word we all were using was ‘ominous,’” he said. “It’s like, ‘Whoa, look at that.’ … You looked outside and you thought it was three in the morning, it was that dark.”
Gordon Hintz, Winnebago County’s top elected official, said he received numerous reports of destroyed buildings and overturned vehicles. He confirmed that all available storm warnings were activated in advance to give people time to get to safety.
“Obviously when you look at the damage, Mother Nature doesn’t really care,” Hintz said.
