Did you know that on the evening of Thursday, April 13, 2006, fifteen tornadoes tore through eastern Iowa and western Illinois – with the Iowa City area being one of the hardest-hit communities? Damage from the F-2 tornado was concentrated in a 5-mile swath that stretched from Menards along Highway 1 in southwest Iowa City, to the Dairy Queen on Riverside Drive, to dozens of residences on the eastern end of Iowa Avenue. One of the more memorable storm stories from that April evening in 2006 involves one of Iowa City’s oldest churches.
St. Patrick Catholic Church was the second parish founded in Iowa City after St. Mary’s. The Rev. M. V. Rice celebrated the first mass on March 23, 1873, the cornerstone on East Court Street was laid on June 13, 1878, and the parish opened on February 2, 1879.
On the night the tornado came through, the historic church had just finished Holy Thursday Mass – three days before Easter Sunday. By 8:15 that evening, according to Rev. Rudolph Juarez, most of the parishioners had gone home, but about 40 people remained in the church.
When the sirens sounded, Juarez and Deacon Jerry Miller led parishioners to the basement of the rectory next door. About 10 to 15 minutes after the tornado passed, Juarez came up to see what damage had been done.
Quoting Juarez – “I thought we would probably have some windows blown out of the church. But I peered out and I could see sky through what was supposed to be the roof of the church. The 80-foot steeple was gone, and the whole front wall of the church was gone. My initial reaction was shock and disbelief.”
In total, the storm caused an estimated $15 million in damage across Iowa City, injured about 30 people, but fortunately, caused no casualties. A significant portion of that $15 million was due to the loss of St. Pat’s, but by December 2006, 300 building permits had been issued for nearly $3.7 million worth of restoration work – including a whole new St. Pat’s campus – which opened in 2009 on the east side of Iowa City!
READ MORE ABOUT THIS IOWA STORY HERE
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