Their mother, Trina Lane, tried to reach them in time. "I was driving down in my car like a bat out of hell."

The tornado destroyed parts of Muscatine, Iowa; Fruitland, a town southwest of Muscatine; and Grandview, a town farther south, around 12:20 p.m. Friday, according to Sgt. Mark Kopf of the Muscatine County Sheriff's Office. The tornado moved into the area southwest of the Quad-Cities.

The storm also caused damage at a Toyota car dealership in Muscatine, where a manager described the storm as ``unbelievable.''

Tornado warnings were issued for several eastern Iowa counties as severe storms moved through the area. Iowa Gov. Chet Culver declared Muscatine, Louisa and Jackson counties a disaster area. Emergency shelters were opened at Louisa-Muscatine High School and the Muscatine Family YMCA.

When the tornado struck, Ms. Lane was at work driving a bus and her daughters, Tierney, 13, and Tristian, 10, just got home from school.

Her oldest daughter saw a couple windows break and led her sister to the basement, Ms. Lane said. "They could feel things being pulled from the house."

Ms. Lane called her father, who lives two blocks away, to come and get the children, but he couldn't even walk down the street because of the tornado, she said.

When Ms. Lane finally pulled up in front of her house, her daughters came out running and crying. They were very scared.

A neighbor had kept Ms. Lane's dog, Phoebe, safe in her house.

Ms. Lane looked at the house and noticed that the roof was gone, her newly bought home destroyed.

The family had just moved in three weeks ago, said Ms. Lane. After four years, she finally had the chance to move out of her parents' home.

Taking in the damage of the house, she said she just felt utter shock.

"The house is a loss," Ms. Lane said. "I have insurance on it, but I don't know what's going to happen."

"Everything I worked for in the last four years is gone," Ms. Lane said. "This has been a really crappy time because my grandmother died two weeks ago."

Her face looked beaten with uncertainty.

"They say the man upstairs only gives us what we can handle," Ms. Lane said. "That's what I keep telling myself."

The path of the tornado's destruction was random. Some houses were still standing with broken tree branches all around them. Other houses had roofs ripped off. Still, other parts of Muscatine and Fruitland were untouched.

About 5,000 people in Rock Island, Henry and Scott counties were without power because of the storm, but that number was reduced to 470 by Friday night, MidAmerican Energy spokesman Allan Urlis said. Power was expected to be restored by daylight today.

"All I can tell you it's bad. There's some major damage to several houses, trees uprooted and knocked over and I mean big ones. It's a mess," Grandview Mayor Chuck Sorrowfree said

Mayor Sorrowfree said he asked for generators from the Iowa National Guard to restore power and water service to areas of town.

``I'm guaranteeing you that we're going to be down for some time and I'm trying to look to the future right now. They're moving stuff out of the way to get all the emergency and utility companies in town. That's our focus right now,'' Sorrowfree said.

The Fruitland post office and city hall building looked like a bunch of Popsicle sticks, almost as if some huge hand had swatted it.

One postal worker was taken to a hospital, Sgt. Kopf said. Since the storm was in the middle of the day, most people were at work or at school.

Lucinda Robertson, a spokeswoman for Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said injures were reported in the rural area of Grandview.

Fruitland officials broke ground on a new city hall building recently, and luckily hadn't proceeded too far in their construction, Sgt. Kopf said.

Todd Bass, of Morning Sun, was at work at Letica Corp. in Muscatine when he saw funnel clouds drop near railroad tracks.

Ms. Bass said he saw the tornado whir, picking up shingles along the way, coming straight toward the building

He and his co-workers hid in the break room. The tornado veered in another direction.

It crushed in the roof of Kelly Goodwin's Fruitland house. Insulation was scattered throughout the building. A tarp covered a couch filled with broken glass.

Ms. Goodwin said she was watching the news about the tornado and a tree came out of the ground. She and her son went into the basement and didn't hear the roof come off. She came out of the basement and couldn't believe what happened.

Ms. Goodwin's face looked blank as she walked through the home she's lived in for 14 years. Outside, a pickup truck and a trailer were filled with a television and other belongings, ready to go to a storage shed.

Across Moore Street, the Munsons’ house was intact. During the storm, Lisa Munson said she and husband were in Muscatine visiting their daughter. The normally short trip to their Fruitland home took two hours.

"We kept hearing Fruitland was demolished," Mrs. Munson said. Once they got to the house, they said they thought, "We were kind of shocked, but relieved."

Her husband, Ron Munson, looked woefully at his neighbors' houses that had roofs taken off. He said, "It's weird how a tornado can jump like that, hit there and not hit here."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.