2 tornadoes tear through Yuma County, destroying property
At least three structures were either significantly damaged or completely destroyed as a result of two tornadoes that moved through the town of Yuma on Tuesday night. Crews spent their day on Wednesday clearing debris and trying to replace downed power lines.
The National Weather Service said in its preliminary report that an EF-3 tornado struck Yuma with peak wind speeds of 150 mph.
Amy Melby and her family live in a home that faces the farm that received the most damage from the tornadoes.
"We saw a lot of motion in the atmosphere, the clouds were starting to swirl around," Melby told CBS News Colorado's Dillon Thomas.
The Melby family has lived in their home for more than 16 years and loves that it backs up to a farm and clear views to their west. Amy said she also enjoys watching storms develop from their home, but not ones that result in tornadoes coming so close.
"We live here and so we have an unobstructed view of storms coming in, and this one was a lot more significant. It was almost a quarter mile of clouds continuously rotating," Melby said. "We realized it was more significant than what we wanted to stay here for, so we loaded up and headed south of town."
The family watched the tornadoes touch the ground from a distance, not knowing if it was on their home or not.
"(Seeing the tornado) is a little overwhelming. A little bit of a rush," Melby said.
The family rushed home to see if there was any damage to their property after the storms passed.
"(The damage) is about 500 yards from our house. When we look at how close it was to our house we are extremely grateful. We were expecting to come back to devastation. And we were pretty much unscathed," Melby said. "Yuma is such a tight-knit community. Guaranteed, people will be helping out with those that had damage to their houses."
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Fortunately, nobody was injured or killed as a result of the storms on Tuesday night.
"At the end of the day, we had the family with us safe in the vehicle. At the end of the day that is all that matters. Because all of this can be replaced, but family cannot," Melby said.
