Twisters Hit in Nebraska, Iowa; 40 Hurt

Massive thunderstorms packing tornadoes and wind gusts up to 92 m.p.h. slammed into Omaha and Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Friday, injuring at least 40 people and damaging more than 100 homes.

One tornado cut a 7-mile path south through east Omaha, blowing out windows of a downtown high rise and other buildings, then cut across the Missouri River into Iowa, uprooting trees, downing power lines and starting fires in a 2-mile stretch in western Council Bluffs along Interstate 29.

Most of Council Bluffs’ 60,000 residents were without power Friday night, and the situation was not expected to change through morning, said Matt Daunis of Iowa Power & Light Co.

Farm Belt Temperatures Soar

A huge dome of hot and humid air hung over most of the Farm Belt on Friday, sending temperatures above the 100-degree mark in a wide area stretching from Kentucky and Ohio through Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas and Arkansas.

The hot weather was expected to continue through the weekend.

Missouri Gov. John Ashcroft issued a heat alert Friday, noting that 22 people died in the state in late June during a similar hot spell.

“Unless we act now to gear up public and private efforts to care for those without shelter from the stifling heat, the potential for human loss over the weekend is staggering,” Ashcroft said.

The temperature in Rockford, Ill., hit a record 103 degrees, and Chicago had 102, a record for the day and for the most 100-degree days in a season. LaCrosse, Wis., set a record at 102 degrees and Eau Claire, Wis., had a record 101.

In St. Louis and Washington D.C., the temperature also hit the 100-degree level, Indianapolis had 99 degrees and Cincinnati reported 98 degrees. Pittsburgh tied a 107-year-old record with its 12th consecutive day of temperatures at or above 90 degrees.

Forecasters throughout the Midwest and Great Plains warned of heat index levels approaching the 115-degree mark. A heat index measures the effects of heat and humidity on the body’s ability to cool itself. An index of 105 degrees is considered dangerous to humans and livestock.

The drought also is beginning to take its toll on the nation’s timber industry, officials said Friday.

The U.S. Forest Service barred the use after noon each day of all machinery with internal combustion engines, including chain saws and bulldozers, from Hiawatha National Forest in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Officials said they feared that sparks from the equipment would ignite fires.

While fires were the main concern in the Midwest, bugs provided the West with yet another worry.

“The biggest impact is that it’s causing a bug epidemic,” Truman Puchbauer, timber staff officer for the Boise National Forest in Idaho, said of the drought.

Forest Service officials have said the dry weather over the last three years, combined with fires, created ideal breeding conditions for many species of timber-feeding beetles.

The Forest Service in Idaho said forest fires and the drought have stressed many trees beyond their capacity to fend off attacking pests. A spokesman said hundreds of thousands of trees in the southern part of the state were being attacked by “all kinds of beetles.”