‘I don’t know where we go from here’: Waterloo resident reflects on tornado destruction

WATERLOO, Neb. (WOWT) - One of the first spots in the Omaha area to get hit with a tornado on Friday was near Waterloo.

Resident Gail Pitzl said she and her husband watched the twister approach before taking cover in their basement.

“You could hear the debris hitting our kitchen floor,” Pitzl said. “We were under our kitchen. The pressure changed, your ears popped, and just an enormous amount of debris was falling on the floor above us.”

Pitzl said the tornado didn’t just damage her house, but took out two barns that were more than a century old. The storm flattened both structures, tossed an RV on its side, damaged other vehicles, and killed many of their chickens.

Pitzl said they bought the property in 1993, and that it sustained heavy damage during the 2019 flood.

However, she said she doesn’t see a clear path to recovering from this.

“This house was built in 1892, and it has stood for well over a century,” Pitzl said. And we refurbished it several times now, and I don’t know where we go from here.”

She said the property is insured, but that one thing she learned from the flood five years ago is that it doesn’t cover everything.

Hers was far from the only property damaged in the area. Another resident who didn’t want to talk to us also had the roof ripped off their home and one of the walls caved in.

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