Buzzing saws, the rustling of downed tree branches and the creak of mangled metal filled the Sunday air in the City of Melrose.

Across town, trees were snapped like toothpicks.

The whole sheets of tin wrapped around light poles, mailboxes and disfigured cars on 8th Avenue Northwest may have been the most dramatic sight in town following a storm, including an EF1 tornado, that swept through town on Saturday evening.

Those tin sheets once made up Melrose Metalworks machine shop, now a hollow shell of a local business reduced to debris during the storm. The metal scraps were carried across the street, damaging several apartments and rendering them inhabitable. Other pieces made it over the roofs, landing in the backyard.

National Weather Service officials say winds reached a maximum of 95 mph.

Photographer Sarah Peterson lives a few blocks from some of the worst damage.

“It’s just amazing how much damage there was, and no injuries that I know of,” she said, taking a pause from capturing the aftermath of the storm on her camera.

“And, just saw a lot of rotation in the sky, the different colors of the sky, the green, the red, just saw it coming in. Then, also, straight rain came… I think, then that’s when the sirens started,” Peterson said.

The tornado also damaged other buildings, barns, a couple of homes, property around Little Birch Lake, and a golf course, said Melrose Mayor Joe Finken.

“It happened all within about an hour,” Mayor Finken continued. “The projections were looking like it was going to be hitting east of our city and north, so it seems like at the last moment, it progressed here, and we took the brunt of it… A lot of devastation out there.”

Finken confirmed that there were no reports of storm-related injuries, adding that the families displaced from the apartments across from Melrose Metalworks had all been relocated as of Sunday morning.

As for the total number of displacements, “Not really sure,” the mayor said. “We’re figuring maybe a few more people may be coming in. It was a couple of families, for sure, that are being displaced at the moment.”

City officials set up a collection site where residents dumped debris from fallen trees. On Sunday afternoon, branches and leaves were piled at least 20 feet high, and trucks were coming through the site steadily.

“We’re just not taking stumps or [other] debris,” Finken said.

Power was mostly restored in town as of Sunday, he added.

“There are only eight homes that don’t have power yet, but they will be needing electricians because the storm pulled the wires off them,” Finken added.

Finken said the best place to go for information and to reach out to city emergency staff, like himself, who are helping out with the cleanup is through the city’s Facebook page.

“Message us. We will be helping out the best way we can,” he said.