Witnesses and bystanders describe the deadly tornado that hit the Little Sioux Scout Ranch in Little Sioux, Iowa, at about 6:35 Wednesday night.

Officials with the boy scouts say 93 campers and 25 staff members, making a total of 118 people, were at the ranch for leadership training when the tornado hit.

One father who raced to the scene after the storm hit was relieved to find his son was not seriously injured. "We put several calls into his voicemail, but he was running around, apparently helping a lot of people, so we were really thankful that he was okay."

Scout leaders say all the campers were between the ages of 13 and 18. One of the counselors at the camp, Thomas White, survived as the funnel passed directly above him. He says he jumped into a ditch as the funnel struck. He says one of the other staff turned on a warning siren moments before the camp was hit.

"So we told him, hit the siren, we have a siren on the admin building, so we turned that on, and if we would have been five seconds later, like there would have been way more people gone," says White.

He says he then grabbed a first aid kit and ran to a cabin that was struck by the twister. He says a chimney and fireplace collapsed on campers inside the structure, injuring several inside. He says he was one of the first rescuers because he was in a ditch right near the cabin when it collapsed.

Victims of the tornado were taken to multiple hospitals throughout our area, including Burgess Health Center in Onawa, Iowa, and Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City. Mercy's "Air Care One" has been in the air all night; the first two victims were brought in a little after 8:00 p.m. Mercy Medical staff has confirmed that both of them were alive.

Due to the severity of the situation, extra steps were taken immediately to accommodate the number of victims Mercy Medical Center would be treating.

"Mercy Medical Center has activated it's emergency disaster plan this evening. It's gone very well. We've had a number of physicians and surgeons come in. We have mental health advisors, chaplains, a lot of nurses came into work. We are fully staffed and we are ready for most any situation."

This isn't the first time Mercy Medical s staff has responded to a crisis of this magnitude. Krysl says this kind of disaster brings back memories of Flight 232 back in 1989.

"A lot of staff members here at Mercy remember very well the crash of Flight 232. This is reminiscent of that because of the number of injuries, of course on a smaller scale. We can't say that it's on the same par but at the same time we treat every incident with great seriousness,"

Additional helicopters were asked to report to the scene to get victims out of the disaster area due to the terrain. A man who was delivering chainsaws to rescuers described the aftermath of the tornado's path, he told us there is a small valley that leads right up to the scout camp and he told us that on the north side of the valley all the trees were gone, whereas on the other side the trees were standing.

One problem for rescuers is that there is only one road into the scout camp which is nestled into a remote spot in the loess hills and that small dirt road, after all this rain, is now mud and Highway E60, east of Blencoe, the highway leading toward the camp, became loaded with emergency vehicles, bulldozers, and pickup trucks with chainsaws. Highway E60 is now closed until further notice. Governor Culver has declared Monona County a disaster area.