A tornado killed one person and damaged dozens of homes as it roared through this southern Wisconsin city late Thursday.
At least eight other people were hospitalized as the severe storms blasted their way across the central and southern parts of the state, authorities said.
“The sky just exploded. It was debris everywhere,” said David Murray, 43, who captured the Stoughton tornado on his camera phone. “When it went across the road and it hit all the houses over there … it was something you can’t explain. It just exploded.”
Storm debris traveled eastward in clouds, depositing papers, shingles and other materials in the Milwaukee area, some 60 miles from Stoughton.
Murray described seeing a smashed truck upside down in the middle of a wrecked house, and debris, including an engine block, strewn across the nearby Stoughton Country Club.
As the storm approached, golfers had started coming off the course, and about 40 people huddled in the club’s basement and waited, said the club’s executive chef, Lenny Peaslee.