Iowans cleaned up another two weeks after storm that swept over 700 miles, causing more than $ 3 billion in damage; Douglas Kennedy reports.
Iowa farmers say it will be a massive undertaking to recover from a hurricane storm that damaged an estimated 14 million acres of agriculture earlier this month.
On August 10, a dangerous wine event, known as a derecho through Iowa with gusts of up to 140 mph, devastated thousands of farms.
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The agricultural losses lost to the storm included 8.7 million acres of corn and 5.3 million acres of soybean, Lance Lillibridge, of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, told Fox News.
Even though more than half of the state’s corn is affected, Lillibridge said the bigger problem is the widespread damage to storage bins, a situation he described as a severe natural disaster affecting the food supply of the nation could.
“The chance of building new bins in time for the harvest is slim to absolutely none,” he said.
TAMA, IA – AUGUST 11: In this aerial photo of a drone, corn plants are shown on August 11, 2020 in Tama, Iowa being exaggerated in a storm-damaged field. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said early estimates indicate that 10 million acres, or nearly a third of that
The damage spread outside farms, with officials reporting 60,000 damaged homes in Cedar Rapids alone. In response to the statewide damage, Gov. Kim Reynolds has filed a quick presidency for major disasters seeking nearly $ 4 billion.
President Trump said last week that he had signed the emergency declaration, but federal emergency management officials later confirmed that he had only signed part of the request.
He approved about $ 45 million of the public assistance portion of the governor’s application, which covers 16 counties, to provide waste disposal and repair government buildings and utilities.
He rejected the individual application for assistance for 27 counties covering $ 82.7 million for houses destroyed as with major damage and $ 3.77 billion for damage to agriculture on farmland, cornfields and buildings and $ 100 million for repairs of private utilities.
Lillibridge said that without federal assistance some farmers might not recover.
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“With the lack of federal response in this situation, it’s just hard for anyone to have any direction and some will probably just go under and be done because they just do not know where to go or what to do,” he said. hy.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
