As clouds rolled in and the sky above Ames turned an ominous green, the National Weather Service posted a message on its Web site warning of an approaching storm that threatened to be “quite volatile in terms of energy and shear.”

But as the tornado warnings lifted, the official report from the weather service was no tornadoes touched down in the city.

As of 9:37 p.m. Thursday, the Department of Public Safety had received no calls regarding damage on campus. The severest of weather-related calls DPS received came from people locking themselves out of cars and not wanting to get wet, said Lt. Joel Congden.

“Initial assessments are [Iowa State] did very well,” Congden said. “I don’t think there are any significant tree limbs that are down.”

However, Congden said, it is hard to assess if the storm caused any hail damage.

Warren Madden, vice president for business and finance, said hail damage to windows and greenhouses is more of a concern than tornadoes hitting the campus. Madden, who has worked for Iowa State for more than 30 years, said he cannot recall a tornado coming through campus during his tenure.

If a tornado or strong winds were to cause significant damage to Iowa State, Madden said, the DPS-led Crisis Incident Response Team would respond depending on the nature of the incident and its location.

“These plans are reasonably worked out because of the floods that came through in the 1990s and because of [preparations for] terrorist threats,” Madden said.

“The first priority is protecting people.”

Most of the buildings on campus are able to serve as tornado shelters, Madden said, as are residence halls.

“I suspect people [in residence halls] haven’t done as adequate of job informing people [where to go] since we’re only three or four days into the school year,” Madden said.

Department of Residence administrators could not be reached, but students in the dorms assembled in hallways for protection.

Steve Teachout, meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said there were no official touchdowns in Ames. A tornado was spotted in eastern Story County, two miles west of Maxwell, he said.

Reports of trees blown down two miles north of Ames on U.S. Highway 69 were called in, Teachout said. Street flooding was also sighted on South Duff Avenue and under the train overpass on Grand Avenue.

The Ames Police Department reported little damage to the city. There were power outages on Ashmore Drive and the 300 block of 16th Street, and stoplights at the intersections of Elwood Drive and 4th Street and Duff Avenue and 13th Street were flashing.