GREENFIELD, IOWA - MAY 23: Victoria Turner by debris in front of her home which was lifted of its foundation and moved about 30 feet while she sheltered in the basement during Tuesday''s destructive tornado on May 23, 2024 in Greenfield, Iowa. The storm was responsible for several deaths in the small community. Scott Olson/Getty Images/AFP But only a small fraction of turbines in the midwestern state were affected, and officials and an engineer told AFP such intense damage is rare.
wind turbines to be placed at a minimum distance from inhabited areas in order to reduce risk to human safety in case of a catastrophic event (archived But turbines,"like any other piece of infrastructure including buildings, can be damaged by a direct hit by a tornado," a spokesman for the Department of Energy told AFP on May 23.But Arwade said:"If you look at all of the wind turbines across Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa, all the Great Plains states, the number of those turbines that are going to be impacted in a given tornado season is small. Even with incorporating the effects of climate change, it is going to remain small.