By Correne Martin, Audrey Posten and Ted Pennekamp
A confirmed EF1 tornado, with winds up to 110 mph, ripped through the small, historical river town of McGregor, Wednesday, July 19, around 6:15 p.m., devastating buildings, snapping trees and blowing debris, as it severely changed the community’s downtown landscape indefinitely. No one was killed in the storm, though one man died during clean-up efforts on his own farm, according to Clayton County authorities.
Once the storm, which included plenty of hard-driving rain too, ravaged McGregor, it crossed the Mississippi River into the south end of Prairie du Chien, at the boundary with Bridgeport. There, weaker straight line winds, as National Weather Service officials are saying, wiped out more structures, tipped campers and left behind days’ worth of damage to clear for businesses and residents.