Map of the path of Saturday’s longest tornado, courtesy of National Weather Service.

Senator Charles Grassley tells KCII he will do everything he can at a federal level to assist those impacted by the tornadoes that swept through Iowa Saturday evening resulting in seven deaths and many wounded.

Governor Kim Reynolds has issued a disaster proclamation for 10 Iowa counties including Madison which saw six of the fatalities from three supercells that swept across the state producing six tornadoes. The National Weather Service recorded the largest tornado at an EF-4, Iowa’s first since 2013. This was the state’s deadliest tornado since the EF-5 that tore through Parkersburg and New Hartford where Senator Grassley resides, killing nine people. Grassley says he spoke with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Sunday who told him that he would offer all the help he could within the Federal Emergency Management Agency, “I don’t know whether the threshold has reached enough with 50 homes and seven deaths, lost, whether the threshold is enough to have a presidential declaration. I’m sure the governor’s trying to get those figures and present them to the White House, I’m sure that we in the Congressional delegation will be backing up the governor on that request.”

The governor’s disaster proclamation allows state resources to be utilized to respond to and recover from the effects of the severe weather in the designated counties. Saturday’s tornado was the second-longest in Iowa since 1980, behind the longest occurring on June 7, 1984 at a length of 117 miles across the southern part of the state. You can hear more from Grassley during Tuesday’s Halcyon House Washington Page on air and at kciiradio.com.