Nature's fury

In my never-ending search for cool stuff on the internet, I came across a feature the Des Moines Register did on the May 25 Parkersburg, Iowa tornado. They have a bunch of photo galleries and a nice tornado history map, but the incredible part is this interactive aerial view of the city that lets you click on individual properties and see before and after pictures of the damage.



You see plenty of natural disaster video on the nightly news, but I had no idea how thoroughly parts of the town were destroyed until I saw some of this. It's terrifying.

[Des Moines Register -- Parkersburg tornado, the aftermath]
[Des Moines Register -- 2008 tornadoes special section]