The claim: Video shows tornado and storm in Iowa on July 30

A July 31 Facebook video (direct link, archive link) shows an array of storm and tornado footage.

“Tornado and Storm in Iowa USA,” reads text superimposed over the video. “July 30, 2024.”

The video was shared more than 400 times in two weeks.

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Our rating: False

There was no tornado in Iowa on July 30, and the video doesn’t appear to show any footage from Iowa, according to an area meteorologist. The video includes clips from other places.

No tornado in Iowa on July 30

There were “damaging winds,” but no tornadoes in Iowa on July 30, Rod Donavon, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, told USA TODAY. He said none of the footage in the video appeared to be from Iowa and he recognized some of the clips as old videos from other places.

The video includes footage of weather events in Taiwan, Arkansas, Michigan and Nebraska. It also includes clips that were posted online prior to July 30 and one clip that matches an event that occurred before that date.

Donavon said one of the clips in the video shows hailstones that are much larger than the hail that was reported in Iowa on July 30.

Fact check: Video old footage, not Aug. 8 Tennessee tornado

USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Our fact-check sources:

• Rod Donavon, Aug. 12, Phone interview with USA TODAY
• The Washington Post, Aug. 10, 2015, Dashcam records terrifying video of Typhoon Soudelor tornado in Taiwan
• Google Maps, accessed Aug. 13, 2289 Spence Cir, Jonesboro, Arkansas
• Google Maps, accessed Aug. 13, 284 M-32, Gaylord, Michigan
• Google Maps, accessed Aug. 13, 8815 Cornhusker Hwy, Lincoln, Nebraska

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York Institute girls basketball star and Iowa State commitment Reese Beaty will miss the 2024-25 TSSAA basketball season due to injury, according to a Facebook post by her mom, Bethany Beaty, on Monday.

Reese, who will be a senior this year, tore her labrum, the post said. She had been playing with shoulder pain since February and her family decided to get surgery after receiving consultation from Iowa State’s medical team. The recovery time span is six months. 

Beaty was a TSSAA Class 2A Miss Basketball finalist and led York to the TSSAA basketball state quarterfinals last season. She was also a finalist for The Tennessean’s Midstate Girls Basketball Player of the Year.

Beaty verbally committed to Iowa State in July. She reopened her recruitment in March after previously being committed to Clemson after Tigers coach Amanda Butler was fired. Numerous new scholarship offers followed, including Cal, Auburn, Colorado, West Virginia, TCU, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi State, Wisconsin, Michigan and Penn State.

More: How Reese Beaty led York Institute to OT win vs McMinn Central in TSSAA basketball tournament

More: Imari Berry decommits from Clemson women’s basketball after coach Amanda Butler fired

She averaged 17.4 points, 6.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.2 steals for York last season, leading the Dragonettes to their third consecutive TSSAA state tournament. Her two free throws with 20 seconds left secured York’s 66-63 overtime win over McMinn Central in a Class 2A girls quarterfinal. She finished with a game-high 33 points and six assists. 

Reach sports writer Tyler Palmateer at tpalmateer@tennessean.com and on the X platform, formerly Twitter, @tpalmateer83.

Joe Swanson, a resident of Perry, Iowa, is no longer working in the town he loves and where his kids go to school. That’s because the city’s largest employer, a Tyson Foods pork plant, recently shut down.

Swanson says when the company announced in March they were shuttering the plant, he couldn’t risk unemployment because of his health issues. So when he found a new job with health benefits, he says he took it and left Tyson around six weeks before it officially closed on June 28.

“None of us picked this, and I just want everybody to be OK. Because I know how hard this is going to be for a lot of people,” said Swanson, who worked at the factory for nearly 14 years.

Many of the 1,300 hundred other laid-off employees are now grappling with the same situation — living, but no longer working, in Perry. A new path forward may be somewhere else.

“You have the power to make sure that you find the right opportunity that’s going to benefit you and your family,” Swanson said.

But the reality in Perry is that the right opportunities left a long time ago. The meat processing plant is not modern enough for the company, and upgrades would simply cost too much. 

“Maybe we were hoping for a miracle at first, where we can just turn off the lights on June 28th and turn them back on with a new user. And that’s simply not the case,” said Rachel Wacker, executive director of the Greater Dallas County Development Alliance.

The Tyson plant employed about 25% of Perry’s working-age residents before it shuttered, according to city and county officials. Accounting for workers’ families and businesses directly related to the plant, about 60% of the town is affected by the closure.

Two hundred team members relocated to Tyson facilities in Iowa and outside the state, Tyson Foods told CBS News.

The plight of the so-called “one-factory” town is not new.

In the 1970s, Youngstown, Ohio, was a thriving steel city of 140,000 people. The mills closed, and now the population is less than half of what it used to be, according to U.S. Census data. Ohio was hit hard again in 2008, when a shipping hub in Wilmington closed, leaving 42% of the working age population without a job.

In Farmerville, Louisiana, a chicken plant that employed more than a third of the town shut down in 2009, the CBS News data team found.

Back in Perry, people like Nacho Calderon are learning from history. After being laid off at the Tyson plant, he hopes to become a garbage or concrete truck driver.

Driving garbage trucks in Perry requires a commercial drivers license. The local community college is giving trucking classes for free to give workers a shot at staying in town.

Calderon says he’s sad he lost his job, and also for his coworkers who may not have cars or much money to help them get back on their feet.

As Calderon is still looking for work, Swanson has this advice: “Take control.”

He found a job handling maintenance at an apartment complex out of town.

“[It’s] what I feel like is a great opportunity, and I want that for everyone,” Swanson said.

It’s a hopeful wish for friends who lost their jobs, but against all odds, refuse to quit on their city.