A tornado tore through the southeastern South Dakota town of Wessington Springs on Wednesday night, razing dozens of homes and businesses and leaving two people with minor injuries, the National Weather Service said.
Residents were immediately alerted through tornado alarms just before the twister struck around 8 p.m., prompting them to head to the town's emergency shelter in the basement of the Jerauld County courthouse, Dedrich Koch, a Jerauld County prosecutor, said.
While some residents were briefly trapped in their homes, everyone was accounted for after the tornado had passed, the Associated Press reported.
Ten businesses were destroyed and at least 43 houses were damaged or destroyed in the town of about 1,000 residents, Koch said early Thursday. Displaced residents would be provided with bedding and food by the Red Cross.
"The Red Cross is on scene," Roger Dwyer, the Jerauld County emergency management director, said. "Most of the folks (in damaged homes) are bunking up with friends and relatives."
At least 100 South Dakota National Guard soldiers and equipment would be deployed to the town, Gov. Dennis Daugaard said after arriving in the city about 125 miles northwest of Sioux Falls late Wednesday.
An unidentified injured woman and her husband suffered minor injuries when the tornado hit their home near Alpena, about 15 miles east of Wessington Springs. They were treated at Avera Weskota Memorial Hospital in Wessington Springs and are in good condition, Lindsey Meyers, spokeswoman for Avera Health, said. She did not identify the couple and had no further details.
The town was without power overnight and Koch said generators would be made available Wednesday. The hospital was operating on backup power since some of the hospital's windows had been broken in the storm, Meyers said.
The tornado was reported by law enforcement in Wessington Springs to have gone right "through the heart of town," National Weather Service meteorologist Todd Heitkamp said.
Apart from a bar, an auto dealership and several farms being damaged, an American Legion, a veterans organization providing financial, social, and emotional support to members of the United States Armed Forces, veterans, and their dependents, was also wrecked.
"Right now we are securing areas," Koch said late Wednesday. "We'll assess damage and cleanup in the morning when we get some light."
Father Jim Friedrich said the community was thankful that nobody was seriously hurt, the AP reported.
"We do see our blessings right away," said Friedrich, who's been preaching at St. Joseph's Catholic Church for eight years. "It was very serious damage. What it hit, it hit very hard. That's just why we are thankful that there was good warning."
The same tornado that ravaged Wessignton Springs then traveled east, narrowly missing the towns of Lane and Woonsocket.
