The impact of a windstorm that shook the Midwest continued to grow Wednesday as widespread power outages kept businesses shut down, restricted communications, damaged food and caused long lines at gas stations.
The rare storm known as a derecho struck Monday, destroying parts of the power grid, destroying valuable corn fields and killing at least two people. It produced winds of up to 112 mph near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and trees up, cut pulses, cut power lines down and tore roofs off from eastern Nebraska to Indiana.
“It feels like we’d been kicked pretty good in the teeth,” said Dale Todd, a member of Cedar Rapids City Council. “Recovery will be methodical, and slow. But right now, everyone is working to get the critical services back. “
Todd said the city’s response is complicated by the challenge of communicating with people who have no power, meaning they have limited access to the Internet, TV and telephone service.
In the city of 133,000 people, residents emptied their refrigerators and freezers when their food was spoiled, waited an hour or so at gas stations to refill their cars and gas sheets, and worked to pick up fallen trees.
DERECHO DAMAGE IN IOWA, FLATTENED CROPS SPOTTED IN ‘IMPRESSIVE’ SATELLITE IMAGES
A part of a tree that split near the trunk is lying on a road in Oak Park, Ill., While also appearing to have not landed on a car parked on the road, after a severe storm through it Chicago area Monday, Aug. 10; , 2020.
(AP)
Greg Buelow, spokesman for Cedar Rapids, said several patients reported to hospitals with chainsaw injuries sustained while removing tree trunks. Scores of others who are on oxygen tanks and need nebulization treatments have gone to hospitals for help, he said.
In addition, firefighters responded to two fires Wednesday morning that were started by power generators that were too close to homes, he said.
Crews throughout the region have been working around the clock to restore electricity, but they have been hampered by downed trees blocking roads as well as above the power lines. Those trees must be removed before the power can be restored.
The derecho produced seven tornadoes in the Chicago metropolitan area, including an EF-1 tornado with 110 mph wind that hit the Rogers Park neighborhood on the north side of the city before moving to Lake Michigan as a water post, the said. National Weather Service.
That storm caused damage along a 3-mile (4.8-kilometer) road and was the first tornado of at least EF-1 strength to hit Chicago since May 1983, the weather service said.
Another EF-1 tornado struck the iconic white steeple atop College Church in the Chicago suburb of Wheaton. A crew used a crane to remove the steep Tuesday and on Wednesday workers began repairs to the roof of the 1935 church building.
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The weather service also confirmed two tornadoes in southern Wisconsin and two in northern Indiana, including an EF-1 that swept the rural community of Wakarusa, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of South Bend.
Alliant Energy said about 176,000 of its customers are without power, and half of those are in the Cedar Rapids area. MidAmerican Energy said about 139,000 of its Iowa and Illinois customers remain powerless, half in the Des Moines area.
As of late Wednesday morning, ComEd reported that about 200,000 of its customers in Chicago area were left without power. Northern Indiana Public Service Co. reported about 18,500 of their Indiana customers were still in the dark.
Mediacom said Wednesday that the Internet service has returned to about half of the 340,000 customers who were offline a day earlier in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana. But many others may be without service until their strength is restored, a process that may take days.
Corn plants lie on the ground following a derecho storm that swept across the Midwest with wind gusts near 100 mph in Iowa and Illinois.
(Photo by Daniel Acker / Getty Images)
Some fuel terminals were also knocked offline and many gas stations were shut down due to power outages. Meanwhile, the demand for gas for fuel generators, chainsaws and cars has been spiked, leading to long lines at gas stations.
The storm caused extensive crop damage in the nation’s No. 1 corn-producing state as it swept across central Iowa from west to east.
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig said Tuesday that about 10 million acres of Iowa’s nearly 31 million acres of farmland were damaged. About 24 million acres of it is typically planted primarily with corn and soybeans.
In addition, tens of millions of bushels of grain that were stored at co-ops and on farms were damaged or destroyed when bins blew away.
The only known death in Iowa was a 63-year-old cyclist who was hit by one of several large trees that fell on a bike path outside Cedar Rapids. In Fort Wayne, Indiana, the storm killed a 73-year-old woman who was found holding a young boy trapped in her storm-abused mobile home.
DERECHO IN MIDWEST TRAVEL 770 MILES IN 14 HOURS, FLIPPED TRUCKS AND SMASHED A GRAIN ELEVATOR
An Iowa State Trooper was taken prisoner Monday on radar winds blowing above 90 km / h like a derecho across the state.
(Iowa State Patrol)
Many businesses, including banks, restaurants and a large corn processing plant in Cedar Rapids, remained closed on Wednesday due to power outages.
The Cedar Rapids school district said it was considering pushing back this month’s start date after more than 20 of its buildings suffered roof and other structural damage.
State sen. Liz Mathis said she took cover Monday in the basement of her suburb Cedar Rapids home when the storm hit her neighborhood for 45 minutes. She said photos of the wall fell, water was sucked through windows and she made sure the glass would blow in and injure her.
Mathis said the destruction is widespread in her district, and the “tree damage is unreal.” A local utility spokesman told Mathis on Wednesday that it could take a week before everyone returns to power.
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“The cities will look different without the trees and it will take a while to repair this,” she said.
