Nine days ago, Parkersburg, Iowa was decimated by an EF5 tornado...an enhanced F5 tornado, which is the most powerful rating given to a tornado. 205 MPH winds from a storm that, at one time, measured a mile in width wiped out one-third of the town, leveling more than 300 homes and businesses. Parkersburg is located about two hours north of Iowa City, but the effects were still felt here from friends and family of our church that fell victim to the storm...some of whom were among the 50+ injured, one of whom was of the seven deaths.

Earlier that very same day, our church had introduced the song, "I Have A Shelter", which seems to find its lyrical inspiration from the Psalms (cf. Psalm 55) and depicts a powerful image of God's shelter amidst storms--both literal and figurative. Our programming lineup had the same song to be used this past week, and I wanted to use the story and images from this storm as the song's foundation as we recognized and remembered those affected by this Memorial holiday storm. So, I put together a video slideshow of images from various sources for a visual application to the song as we sang it together.

Photos Courtesy: NWS of Des Moines (http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cases/080525/dmx_parkersburg_damage/) & dougiefresh27 (http://picasaweb.google.com/dougiefresh27)

Other photos (from NWS)...
The foliage AND bark stripped from a tree.

Mud caked to a utility pole from 205 MPH horizontal winds.

This utility pole was ripped from its socket after being twirled in the hole like a straw spinning in a beverage glass.