The cover of the Times-Republican the day after the tornado.

In the early afternoon of July 19, 2018, I arrived back to the newsroom having been on assignment, and quickly parked my car on the side street in front of First United Methodist Church, instead of the usual lot a block away. Fellow reporters Mike Donahey and Adam Sodders were out of the office.

I was playing a bit of catch-up, having returned Tuesday from a three-day weekend in Galena with my husband Andy. That Monday, as Andy ziplined at Chestnut Mountain Resort, I stood on a hillside overlooking the Mississippi River Valley, a bit in awe of the cloudless sky and deep blue water. Mother Nature is magnificent, I thought to myself, as we packed up and headed for home in my car that was to be totaled three days later.

Because several severe weather alerts were popping up all over the state on July 19, people were worried Marshalltown too would be impacted.

Mike, who resides east of the Iowa Veterans Home, went to his residence to make sure the porch windows were closed.

“I turned to the emergency weather frequency on our radio to keep informed. Soon I was on the phone with Marshall County Sheriff Steve Hoffman about an incident that had been peacefully resolved in the northern part of the county. After our conversation, the radio report said the likelihood of severe weather had lessened,” Mike said.

Back at the T-R, our phones beeped for the first time, signaling trouble. Employees from all departments gathered in the newspaper’s bomb shelter in the basement. It was then we learned a tornado was on the ground in Bondurant. Close, sure, but not exactly in our backyard. After receiving the “all clear,” some of us remained behind while others ventured out.

Former advertising sales rep Lynne Guldager left for her home in Eldora just minutes before the tornado struck.

“It was raining lightly when I left, then started to rain heavily. I was listening to John on KDAO, then the radio went dead. I thought, oh, my God,” she recalled.

Adam was at his home in State Center, preparing for a trip to Chicago the next morning, to pick up his now-wife Mady from the airport, when the weather took a turn for the worst. He reached out to Marshall County Emergency Management Coordinator Kim Elder.

“I called her and we met north of State Center, where she was monitoring the storm as it approached Marshalltown. I tagged along as she drove down the rural road that eventually becomes Main Street in Marshalltown, and she commented that the storm in front of us looked like it could be problematic. Just a few minutes later, I heard a flurry of activity on her vehicle’s radio, with early reports of damage. I got back to my truck and B-lined it for Marshalltown,” Adam recalled.

Mike was in the process of picking up his wife Karen from work at UnityPoint Health-Marshalltown.

“At that exact time, radio reports said a tornado was tracking toward Marshalltown. I picked up our two cats and took them to the basement, where they found shelter. I stood in the middle of our basement, away from windows on the north and south side,” Mike said. “In a matter of seconds it became dark, the wind became extremely strong and I could hear windows breaking. The tornado had dropped someone’s large metal storage shed between our car parked in the driveway and our garage. It also uprooted two large evergreen trees in our backyard, with one landing on our neighbor’s roof.”

For some reason, I was fixated on finishing a story I was writing about the “fields of gold” which were wildflowers set adjacent to Grimes Farm, that had passersby a buzz with excitement.

When the alerts again interrupted the workday — this time just after 4 p.m., I felt a bit put out about having to again pause what I was doing. We assembled again in the basement. And just like a scene out of a movie, the lights began to flicker, and then we were plunged into darkness. I’ll never forget the roar of the tornado — which spanned 900 yards — as it passed over the newspaper office. The pressure change caused some people’s ears to pop. I thought about my front page story in that day’s paper, which previewed the opening of Marshalltown Community Theatre’s latest production — “The Wizard of Oz.”

“I stayed at the TR, ending up in the basement. It was a harrowing experience. I think we believed that Marshalltown was protected from a tornado because of its position between rivers. Obviously an old wife’s tale,” said newsroom clerk Kathy Beane. “I won’t ever forget barely getting the young man down to the basement (who was spotted on the sidewalk outside) before it hit, or the constant banging of the garbage can against the building, though at the time, I didn’t know if it was that or my vehicle.”

Former home delivery clerk Amber Thorson also remembers the sound of the garbage can, and the feeling of uncertainty as she too huddled in the basement.

“It was scary for sure. My daughter was at home with our roommate and he got her to the basement. My other daughter was at Elm daycare,” she said. “I thought it was just a bad storm and not a tornado. Boy I was wrong.”

As things died down, we got brave and ventured upstairs. Upon picking up a receiver at the front desk, we discovered the phone lines were down. Cell service was unreliable, and I remember my phone was without a signal. We all took turns using someone’s cell that worked. Kathy’s vehicle, parked out front, had all the glass blown out of the back windshield. When I stepped outside and saw the massive tree limb straddling the sidewalk and road in front of the church, I knew my car was in peril. But the tree had actually landed on the car parked behind mine, although I had to pry a large piece of loose metal out from my car’s undercarriage before I could drive it. All of the scratches and paint chipsto the body of the car would later deem it a total loss by my insurance company.

Adam noted that as soon as he crossed Highway 330 west of town, he began noticing larger pieces of debris.

“I started talking to residents after I met a downed tree across the road on the northwest side of town, and I also began to take the first of probably thousands of pictures of the destruction from the tornado,” he added.

Mike’s house suffered significant roof damage, numerous broken windows and extensive damage to gutters and downspouts, but luckily, insurance covered most of it.

“By the end of the year, our roof, windows and other items were replaced. Our cats were not harmed, nor were Karen or I. For that we were grateful,” Mike said.

My husband Andy was off work by then. He told me he had huddled in the bathtub of our basement apartment (with our cat Madi). With broken glass everywhere, large tree limbs blocking roads and live wires dangling haphazardly in the street, I asked Andy to drive down and follow me home, which was probably not the best idea. He agreed, saying our part of town (we lived near the high school) looked unscathed. But as he crossed the bridge and entered the downtown area, it became a tale of two cities.

“I had to walk from the TR to Elm to get my daughter from daycare. I had to walk to get her because my car was still covered by the branches and brush,” Amber said. “I then had to walk with my daughter from Elm to East Webster Street where we lived. It was awful because there were down lines and I had to carry my daughter over those areas. We were also without power at our place for two weeks. It was definitely something you don’t forget.”

Our news editor Emily Wood, formerly Barske, and publisher Abigail Pelzer, ventured up the street and began taking photos and doing interviews. It had only been Wood’s tenth day on the job. The amount of bricks scattered in the street, from the former Fantles building, was only the lead up to the devastating sight of the courthouse.

“We had boots on the ground immediately after emerging from the basement. I only had my iPhone on me, so that’s what we had to use to get photos. The timestamp on the first photo was at 4:52 p.m., which we would later know was just four minutes after the National Weather Service said the tornado dissipated,” Emily recalled. “I saw ginormous trees snapped like toothpicks and the top off the courthouse. Reporters worked from several locations since they had taken shelter in various places, some at home, since it was the end of the day. We talked with many people who had just experienced the storm, including those who had buildings fall besides them.”

Pelzer, who was new to the publisher’s role at the time and held that position until 2022, said the whole experience is still “surreal” five years later.

“We all took cover in the basement of the T-R as the tornado ripped through downtown. We could hear it and feel it in a way that prepared us for the worst,” she said. “As soon as it passed, I grabbed our editor Emily and we headed out to the devastation. It was surreal — like walking through a bad nightmare. I remember looking at the RACOM building and thinking people must have died. As we walked up Main Street, that thought returned frequently. I’m still amazed nobody was killed in the storm. The editorial team quickly got to work shooting photos and gathering as much information as they could about the impact. Getting the stories out to our community was our largest obstacle with no cell phone reception and no electricity. A small and incredible team moved our server, computers, and other equipment over to our Tama office where we set up shop. We were overwhelmed and exhausted but determined to get the paper out. That edition was printed in Webster City and the T-R arrived on doorsteps the next morning with the headline, ‘DEVASTATED.’ Remarkable stories unfolded for years. Many told of humanity, resiliency and a true love of community.”

That night we continued to take photos and drive around town talking to people. As we traversed the city it became clear it was more than Main Street that got hit.

Steve Plain, who for decades served as creative services and IT director at the Times-Republican, led efforts to relocate computers and servers to allow T-R staff to work remotely. Emily and Abigail worked at the sister publication, the Tama-Toledo News Chronicle, to ensure there would be a July 20 edition of the newspaper.

“To get the reporting published, we had to jumble it together from phone calls, texts and emails that we could get to come through from the reporters because cell reception and Internet were still spotty. We finished sometime after 2 a.m.,” Emily added.

Sports editor Ross Thede and his then-assistant, Thorn Compton, also provided reporting with additional help brought in from the Fort Dodge Messenger.

Water seeped into the newsroom with noisy repair work lasting months. We often went inside buildings that were probably unsafe to inhabit, and drove our cars through “road closed” signs in order to get to work. That October, Emily and I toured the courthouse. Her photos and my story helped illuminate the monstrous destruction.

As a team, we produced hundreds of articles on the tornado, including magazines that honored the six month and one year anniversaries, as well as a tornado photo book entitled “Ravaged” with hard work put in by copy editor Stephanie Bowers, with photos provided by staff, freelancers and the general public. The newspaper also hosted a dinner and awards ceremony on the one-year anniversary of the tornado, raising more than $5,000 for Rebuild Marshalltown.

“It remains among my proudest moments of my professional life,” Adam said. “Together over the next several weeks and months, we did some incredibly intense and important work collecting people’s experiences and informing the public about where and from whom they could get support. I saw people all over Marshalltown at their best, and it was inspiring, despite the destruction and difficulty.”

It was easy to develop compassion fatigue. I interviewed several people who were uninsured (either their home or business) who lost everything that fateful day. I’ll never forget talking with a mother and daughter who told me their home was gone. I knew part of my assignment was taking photos that illustrated the devastation.

I remember raising my camera up to capture the expressions on their faces — pure anguish — and not being able to click the button. It was easy for state and national media to descend on Marshalltown, get the juicy stories, lead with the most dramatic scenes, and then go home. But those of us who remained behind were a part of a community, and I wanted to make sure people’s heartache was not turned into a commodity.

For two years in a row, the Iowa Newspaper Association honored our ongoing coverage, and the team took home several awards for best news, breaking news, special sections and community leadership.

“After the tornado, we experienced a derecho and I was at home. I didn’t think I would be affected, but I sat on my basement steps crying and shaking uncontrollably. Maybe this is what PTSD feels like,” Kathy recalled.

Indeed, Marshalltown has endured much suffering in the past five years. But the city is filled with “doers” — people who work tirelessly to improve Marshalltown’s quality of life, not just in the present, but for years to come.