Iowa was hammered by severe weather Friday, Saturday and Monday nights, resulting in widespread damage and flooding.

Storms moving across the state have produced heavy rain, wind, hail and a string of 19 tornadoes, causing flooding, closing roads, displacing some families and knocking out power.

The most extensive tornado damage occurred in north-central Iowa, where at least 30 buildings in the tiny Humboldt County community of Bradgate were demolished.

William Cran, senior in agricultural business, grew up in Bradgate. He said his family’s farm, which is located a half mile northwest of town, was spared from any major damages.

“The tornado went about 100 yards south of our farm,” he said. “We had one little tool shed that blew over, and a tree or two was knocked down, but that’s about it.”

Cran said he was in Ames when he first learned about the tornado on television Friday night, and he called his father, who was also not in Bradgate at the time.

“I wanted to know what happened to our farm, so I told my dad to call me when he got to Bradgate,” he said. “He didn’t call and he didn’t call, and I was getting worried, so I decided to jump in my car and head out there.”

Arriving in Bradgate around midnight, Cran said it was too dark to assess the extent of the damages to his community.

“That night, police had the whole town blocked off — you couldn’t even get in — but there was enough lightning flashing to see all the silhouettes of the trees that were torn up,” he said.

Cran said he was in shock when he went into town the next morning with his father to see if he could help people clean up.

“There used to be a gas station on a road going into town, and lately it had just been used as storage … when I came into town that morning, it was completely gone,” he said. “I still don’t know where it went; it’s probably out in a field somewhere.”

The grain co-op in Bradgate also suffered extensive damages, which greatly affects the livelihoods of all the farmers in the area, Cran said.

“My dad farms and that’s a big part of our life; that’s where most of our grain goes,” he said. “Since about 60 percent of our grain goes there, we might have to haul it to another city. They may have it fixed in time for harvest [at the middle to end of September], but I have doubts that it’ll be as full capacity as it used to be.”

During the cleanup efforts, Cran said he saw many people moving what possessions they had left to nearby towns such as Humboldt.

“I’m kind of sad because I don’t see that they’re going to rebuild the town,” he said.

“There’s not going to be much left, you know what I mean?”

Cran’s brother, Jonathan, is a junior in computer engineering at Iowa State.

Another Bradgate native, Jonathan Ricklefs, junior in agricultural systems technology, could not be reached for comment.

As much as nine inches of rain fell over the weekend near Ames.

Clare Bills, public relations officer for the city of Ames, said more rainfall on Monday could be seriously detrimental.

“If we get another one to two inches, we’ll be at a bank full in the Skunk River and Squaw Creek,” she said. “There may be some low-lying flooding.”

Monday night storms caused numerous tornado warnings, one of which caused the evacuation of Des Moines International Airport for about an hour.

Twenty-three Iowa counties have been declared state disaster areas: Black Hawk, Boone, Bremer, Buchanan, Butler, Cass, Cerro Gordo, Chickasaw, Clayton, Delaware, Fayette, Floyd, Hancock, Howard, Humboldt, Johnson, Jones, Kossuth, Mitchell, Page, Pocahontas, Winnebago and Wright.

Iowa Emergency Management Director Ellen Gordon told the Associated Press she expects to hear about Gov. Tom Vilsack’s federal disaster area requests for those counties Tuesday.

— The Associated Press contributed to this article.