Powerful storm pounds Idaho town

ROBERTS, Idaho (CNN) -- A strong storm, possibly a tornado, passed through the center of the eastern Idaho town of Roberts, damaging several roofs, picking up trailers and campers like toys and uprooting trees.

No one was injured in the Saturday storm, said Roberts Mayor Ben Poston, who was barbecuing in his yard and dove to the ground when the funnel cloud passed within 20 yards.

"We were just real lucky," he said.

The storm damaged a fueling island at a truck stop as well as roofs of the five buildings that make up the town's center, Poston said. "It picked up an entire trailer home and then set it back down on its foundation," he said.

At Broulim's Grocery Store, manager Terry Larson, 62, and several customers gathered in front of a window as the storm passed by the store's northeast corner.

"It was black," Larson said. "The closest I've seen one. ... I was maybe 50 yards away from it."

"A couple of times as it went through town it just touched down and picked up some ... garbage," he said. "Right after [it] passed, it rained real heavy, and then it quit raining and it looks like the sun's going to try to come out again."

Roberts, which has about 500 residents, is 19 miles north of Idaho Falls in the eastern part of the state.

"We don't have tornadoes out here in this area too much," said Larson, who has lived in Roberts for 38 years. "This was one of the few."

The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for the area at 4:07 p.m. (6:07 p.m. EDT) "after radar showed cloud movement that could create tornadolike conditions," said meteorologist Rick Winther.

An investigator will determine if it was a tornado by inspecting the damage path, which is about a mile long, Winther said.

"If it was a tornado, it was a very weak one," he said.