Update
- Witnesses in Pilger, Nebraska said Monday evening that the prairie village of around 370 residents had been nearly wiped off the face of the earth
- Twin tornadoes measured to have had the fearsome EF-4 rating struck the so-called 'Town Too Tuff To Die' starting Monday afternoon
- Calista Dixon, 5, and 74-year-old David Herout identified as the two fatalities in the disaster
- Twisters moving at 200mph destroyed or heavily damaged 75 per cent of all buildings in town
Aerial images of the town of Pilger,
Nebraska, released Tuesday, paint a vivid picture of the devastation
caused by a pair of deadly tornadoes that ripped through the rural
community, killing a 5-year-old girl and an elderly man.
Photos
taken from a plane show grain bins crumpled like discarded soda cans
and dozens of nearby homes flattened as if they were made of cardboard,
with debris littering the ground all throughout the tiny town.
Winds
measuring at 200mph tore through Pilger Monday night, leveling entire
neighborhoods. The duo of fast-moving twisters gutted the local middle
school and destroyed much of Pilger's farming infrastructure.
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View from the top: This Tuesday aerial photo
shows the tornado-ravaged town of Pilger, Nebraska, with its grain bins
crumpled like discarded soda cans
Costly disaster: Between 45 and 50 homes in Pilger were demolished, about a dozen others were damaged beyond repair
Major impact: The dual twisters destroyed much of the rural town's farming infrastructure
Path of destruction: The tornado crushed much of
the small downtown, leaving piles of bricks that had been storefronts
in the street
Calm before the storm: This Google Earth photo shows Pilger, Nebraska, before a pair of tornadoes touched down there
Up to 75 per cent of the
buildings in Pilger were heavily damaged or destroyed. The tornado
crushed much of the small downtown, leaving piles of bricks that had
been storefronts in the street.
Between 45 and 50 homes in Pilger were demolished, about a dozen others were damaged beyond repair in Dixon County.
Homes south and west of downtown fared even worse, with most reduced to piles of debris or gone entirely.
The
storm appears to have produced four tornadoes in all, said Van DeWald,
lead meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Valley, Nebraska.
The natural disaster claimed two lives and left at least 20 people injured, among them 16 critically.
On Tuesday, authorities identified the casualties as 5-year-old Calista Dixon and 74-year-old David Herout.
Stanton
County Sheriff Mike Unger said little Calista died after suffering
injuries inside of a mobile home on Main Street in Pilger.
Mr Herout, of Clarkson, was killed after his vehicle left a county road east of Pilger, and he was ejected from the car.
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