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MARK ZDECHLIK: Good morning, Paula. I'm standing on one of the main streets of Clarkfield right now. It's windy. There is a little bit of rain and it's rather chilly.

Mangled trees, power lines, along with pieces of wood and metal from homes and businesses are scattered throughout the streets here. There's no power and the water and sewer system isn't functioning either.

Don and Darlene Feist are just two of many property owners around here surveying the damage this morning. Other than a few broken windows, and doors, their home is pretty much intact, but their garage was destroyed in the storm. The roof from the garage lies on the ground about 30 feet away from what's left of its mangled frame.

Don Feist says, it happened at about 10 o'clock last night.

DON FEIST: The tornado does come through and demolish the garage, and the cars, and trees. It's in shambles is what it is.

MARK ZDECHLIK: Have you ever seen anything like this before?

DON FEIST: Yes. In Texas, I see in many of them around Wichita Falls, Texas. In 1941 or '42, I guess I seen one when I was a kid, east to Clarkfield. It took all the barns down out in that area.

MARK ZDECHLIK: Now, this storm has certainly taken a lot of farm buildings down outside of towns like Clarkfield as well. About 25 National Guard troops are blocking the town off to keep sightseers away and possibly head off any potential for looting, anything like that.

I spoke a few minutes ago with Yellow Medicine County Chief Deputy Sheriff Richard Blackwelder.

RICHARD BLACKWELDER: We believe we have about 90%, 95% of all structures in the town have been damaged at one point, or in most of the trees, about 95% of the trees are knocked down in town. Also, all the power lines are out. All the water is out at this time.

MARK ZDECHLIK: How many people live in Clarkfield?

RICHARD BLACKWELDER: Approximately 1,200 people.

MARK ZDECHLIK: So approximately 1,200 people are affected by this storm?

RICHARD BLACKWELDER: Well, there's a lot more than that. We have people that have relatives here, they can't get to them. So we have quite a few people around the outside areas also being affected. We have farm places just outside town having houses knocked down.

We have lots of damage all over. Right now, we're trying to clear all the streets, trying to open up the highways and be able to get to people. We checked everybody before. We're going to check again to make sure there's nobody that needs help. We're going to try to get help to anybody that needs it, or try to clear out the roads so we can get to them, or we're going to try to get power back up. And we're trying to get food and water into town to anybody who needs it.

MARK ZDECHLIK: I understand from talking to one gentleman whose garage is destroyed, that this came with little warning here.

RICHARD BLACKWELDER: We had very little warning that it was going to happen. We don't know at this time, if it's straight line winds, or if it was a tornado, but we knew there was a storm system coming. We had spotters out. They saw nothing. All of a sudden, they were hit. And there were no time to sound the alarm.

We tried to get to the siren system. We could not make it to it. And it was too late. We were also told because of the winds, the sound would not have been heard anyway.

MARK ZDECHLIK: So the siren never sounded.

RICHARD BLACKWELDER: We couldn't get to it.

MARK ZDECHLIK: Although there is some confusion as to whether or not a tornado actually did hit this town, Clarkfield, most of the residents you talk to believe that, certainly, a tornado was responsible for all this damage.

However, the Deputy Chief Blackwelder told me that because no one actually spotted the tornado, it's difficult to say, for sure, that it indeed was a tornado. It could have been straight line winds. Now, local officials have set up a command center at the Clarkfield municipal building, which is also, incidentally, badly damaged by the storm.

Many people from around the community are dropping into this command center on this rainy day for food, beverages, and help.

RICHARD BLACKWELDER: We're trying to set up a spot where anybody wants to help can bring chainsaws and tractors. From there, we delegate to where the people should go, trying to coordinate, trying to get some of these trees off the roads and trying to get them off buildings and stuff like that.

So we're trying to coordinate that from here. We're trying to coordinate the food and water in one location. We're getting that now at the school. And then we're going to try to coordinate trying to get some toilets to town. The necessities of life have to be brought back to town first before we can work the rest of it.

MARK ZDECHLIK: So Paula, it certainly is a mess here. And amazingly, no one was killed during this storm. There were some minor injuries. Five people came in with some cuts and bruises, these sorts of injuries. And apparently, an elderly woman may have had some sort of heart problem during the storm. But amazingly, no one was killed, as far as we know right now.

PAULA SCHROEDER: For that, we should be grateful as well as for the incredible work that these emergency personnel are doing. They're basically recreating a town at this point, it sounds like.

MARK ZDECHLIK: Well, they really are. It's just an incredible mess here. It's very hard to describe. Everywhere you look, there are trees. Right in front of me, there's a shingle right in front of my foot that came from a house. Who knows how far away it came from? It doesn't look like it came from the one across the street.

There's just debris everywhere here. It's amazing whatever came through here, the power that it had.

PAULA SCHROEDER: I think that we should reiterate what you said at the beginning of your report as well, Mark, that streets are being blocked off. People I know are very curious to see what happens in storms like this and in tornadoes. But please stay away from those areas.

And we will continue to hear from you throughout the day, I'm sure, about the efforts that are ongoing to clean up in the aftermath of these storms.

MARK ZDECHLIK: OK, Paula.