ESSEX, Iowa — A powerful tornado was closing in on the Page County town of Essex on Thursday night. The storm mostly missed the town, but did damage houses and barns, as well as cause some cattle to go missing.

“We had just gotten a couple loads in from St. Mary’s Kansas and they broke out obviously we’ve got buildings that are collapsed,” said Alicia Johnson, who farms with her husband and two daughters near the town of Nyman.

Some of the cattle were found, but some are still missing. Volunteers are standing ready to help corral the missing critters.

“For miles away, that are coming to help, it is pretty touching,” said Johnson. “I didn’t think we had that many people that owned horses but we do and they’re all trailered and ready to come help us because it is going to be some miles that we have to round them up.”

Page County Emergency Manager Jill Harvey said they were fortunate there were no injuries or deaths from the storm.

“Through our National Weather Service, reports were coming in actually starting in Nebraska over in Cass County,” said Harvey. “Watching those come across into Fremont and Mills and they started giving those warnings out.”

County Sheriff deputies were busy checking homes after the storm to make sure no one was injured or killed. For the Johnsons, they are missing some cattle, but thankful they survived the tornado.

“We’re just getting supper and we’ve had people going ahead and making sure that we were in the basement and we probably waited too long before they were downstairs,” said Johnson. “I heard windows breaking, it was the air pressure in the house.”

Johnson said some of the curtains were blowing inside out of the windows due to the pressure.

The National Weather Service is expected to visit Page County to find out what rating this storm will get.