Recent derecho in Iowa and other parts of the Midwest

Hello everyone.

I am writing this post as I am thinking about those people who may recently have been involved in the derecho of about 3 weeks ago. For those of you who don't know what a derecho is, it is an extremely strong wind storm with wind speeds that can exceed 100 mph.  It produces wind damage roughly equitable to a category 2 hurricane.  In particular I was wondering if there were any Permies who endured the storm.

I reach out to those who endured the storm for two reasons.  First, a similarly powerful derecho swept through my area back in 2009.  It was truly devastating.  There is actually a Wikipedia page about it HERE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2009_Southern_Midwest_derecho

This article actually covers the effects of the storm quite well.  IF you read through the article, both my wife and I experienced the impassibility of Carbondale first hand.  For myself, I needed to pick up my son from Kindergarten,  normally a 5 minute drive from my place of work.  The drive took me close to a half hour as I drove around, under and over trees in various states of destruction.  Also I saw numerous power lines laying on the road (I drove over them) and the power poles snapped in half.  I had never seen something like that before.  I could only imaging the wind needed to snap a power pole in half roughly at the middle.  I could not return home as trees blocked access for miles.  I had to evacuate to my parents with my kids in tow (my wife had to stay as she is a doctor who was on-call that weekend).  Some of the destruction is still visible today.

A second reason I write this is that the recent derecho went right through the area in Iowa near Cedar Rapids that my in-laws live in.  They were out of power for 10 days and fortunately had no major damage to the house, though they did lose trees.  Basically, if you had to endure the recent derecho, I can identify with you as I have gone through one myself and had to do the clean up.  In my case I needed to have new shingles put on the roof and I had to replace some siding and most of the soffets.  To this day I will still find an odd piece of siding laying about in the woods somewhere having blown off my house more than a decade ago.

My thoughts are with you and if it helps to communicate about the experience, here is a thread for you.

Best wishes and hang in there,

Eric

I was on the lower edge of it, we only got about 70 MPH wind. But it hit like a wall. No build up at all, the air was still, then it was 70 MPH, and things were coming down, blowing over, blowing away...

Hi Pearl and Eric,

I sit  somewhat north and east of Eric. We caught some if it.  The wind kicked up out of nowhere. Then I had a step ladder fly past me. I had the good sense to go inside. I am sure the winds were nowhere near 70 where I am, but 30 or 40 would not surprise me. The town near me had a number of trees down.  I sit on the east side of a hill, so I am pretty sheltered from strong winds.

Pearl, John,

I sure am glad that the both of you are OK.  We did catch just a piece of it, but nothing like what happened in Iowa where my in-laws live.  We had a few small branches that came down but nothing major.

Eric