Four of the seven people killed in devastating storms that tore through central Iowa were members of the same family who were huddled together in the pantry of a home that was razed by a powerful tornado, authorities said.
Two children, their father and their grandmother all died Saturday when a tornado hit the grandparents' home near rural Winterset that didn't have a basement. Family members said the children's mother, 8-year-old brother, grandfather and uncle survived the storm, but they were injured.
The children and their parents, from Blue Springs, Missouri, were visiting their grandmother, Melissa Bazley, 63, when the tornado hit. The storm killed Bazley, 37-year-old Michael Bolger and two of his three young children, 5-year-old Kinlee Bolger and 2-year-old Owen Bolger.
A GoFundMe page for the family says Kuri Bolger, who is the children’s mother and Bazley’s daughter, was hospitalized after being seriously injured. Lynn Larson said her daughter-in-law, Kuri Bolger, underwent surgery on her leg Monday and faces another surgery on her arm to repair broken bones. Her oldest grandson was treated at the hospital and released.
Larson said she and the rest of her family are “just devastated."
“I just can’t describe how wonderful Mike was. Everybody loved him,” Larson said. “It just rips your heart out. My grandchildren were wonderful. They were just the light of my life.”
Two others killed in the tornado — Rodney Clark, 64, and Cecilia Lloyd, 72 — lived in homes just down the street from Bazley that were also hit by the tornado. It was rated an EF-4, with peak winds of 170 mph (274 kph), the National Weather Service said Monday. The tornado was on the ground for nearly 70 miles (113 kilometers), leaving the longest path of destruction since a 1984 tornado that...
