There's a whole children's book series by author Laura Tarshis called "I Survived." This series of books tells the stories of people in the midst of disasters and turmoil. (An example is shown below.) Well, I have a new story for her: I survived the Iowa derecho of 2020.
For those of you readers familiar with Iowa geography, please bear with me as I give a brief lesson to those unfamiliar with the great state of Iowa on the locations of some key places in my "I Survived" story.
Here is map of Iowa. As you can see Interstate 80 runs east to west across the middle of the state, right through the state capital of Des Moines. (The s's are silent in both words, just so you know.) Above Interstate 80 is Highway 30 which runs east to west across most of the state. About 1 hour northeast of Des Moines, just off Highway 30, is a town called Marshalltown. If you follow Highway 30 east about 40 miles you will come to Belle Plaine. If you continue on east for about 65 more miles, you will come to a small town called Stanwood. Here I would turn south to go to Tipton. My Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Rick live right outside Tipton on a farm. Back up at Stanwood, continuing east on Highway 30 for about 18 miles you will come to Wheatland. This is where I will turn right and head south. From here my dad and step mom live only 12 miles away. Remember this as I tell about my adventure on Monday, August 10, 2020.
I woke up on my aunt and uncle's farm outside Tipton and was headed to my dad's later that day. Typically it is about a 20 mile drive. But my cousin, Becky, had told me about a sunflower field near Belle Plaine. Since sunflowers have a very short life span and I was smack dab in the middle of that 20 days, I decided to head west for the 1:20 min drive to see this field of sunflowers.
Once done there, I thought I would continue on west another 40 minutes or so to Marshalltown to check out an antique/junk store I had heard about recently and grab a bite for lunch before heading back to dad's. As I was browsing, I noticed several other customers on their phones listening to the National Weather Service. I asked what was happening and they explained that Des Moines was currently being pummeled by a very severe storm and that it was headed northeast directly for us. SO I decided it was time to leave. I was going to get out of there and get on the road (Highway 30) headed to my dad and stay ahead of this storm.
As I drove east on Highway 30, I could see a storm wall in my rear view mirror. I wasn't really sure what the storm consisted of: rain, hail, wind, tornado.... but I kept an eye out for funnel clouds just in case. As I was driving the storm wall continued to grow and soon what I once could only see if I looked in my rear view mirror, now was visible out of my peripheral vision. It was growing. And it looked like it was catching me. I just wanted to get to my dad's house safely before the storm hit. But that would not be the case.
About 12 miles from my dad's, I had to leave Highway 30 and turn right on 130th Avenue in Wheatland heading south. As I made the right hand turn, the wind picked up and the rain began. The wind and rain were blowing from my right to my left...completely sideways. Things were blowing across the road. As I drove, my hands gripped the steering wheel, not allowing the wind to blow me off the road, I was trying to decide if I should stop somewhere but if I did where would it be. I was in the middle of Iowa corn country. I thought maybe I could drive up someone's farm lane and knock on their door and ask to ride out the storm in the safety of their home. But, I didn't know if anyone would have even let me in. So I kept driving. When I reached the small town of Dixon (4 miles from my dad's house), I saw 2 trucks sitting in front of the fire station. I assumed they were volunteer firemen waiting to see if they were needed. I thought about pulling over with them and seeing if they had a suggestion about where to wait out the storm but since I was almost there, I decided to keep going. The last 0.8 mile to dad's is a gravel road. Once I turned onto the gravel road, I stopped my car, put it in park with the emergency brake on (because of the wind) and texted my step mom that I was coming down the road and to please open the garage. As I pulled into the driveway and up to the door of the garage, my step mom was waiting with the door open. Unfortunately, I could not pull in since there was no space. I grabbed my phone and keys and dashed the short distance to safety. I felt as if I were Dorothy and I had just been blown into a new world. It was approximately 1:30 p.m. Once inside the safety of the house, my step mom informed me that my dad (who was working at a construction site that day) had not gotten home yet. We stood there almost in disbelief watching the wind bend the tall pine trees, throw things around, knock things down, etc. At one point a very large limb from a tree in the yard fell to the ground, and I suggested we head to the basement just in case. We still weren't sure if this was a tornado or not. As we headed down the stairs, we heard my dad pull in the yard. The electricity had been flickering since my arrival but had just gone dark. Dad had been able to get his truck into the garage at the end of the lane but was unable to close the garage door. He came rushing inside and we went to the basement. They have a very nice basement, finished off with carpet and some furniture. It also has a few windows that look out to the front of the house and across the road. We sat there watching the straight line winds, the trees bending and swaying in ways that seemed impossible, and the cornfield across the road taking a beating. We saw several very large limbs come crashing down. Tops of pine trees were being ripped off like toothpicks, hitting the ground and looking like full grown trees instead of just parts of trees.
About 2:15, the rain stopped and the winds died down and we thought the storm was done. So we decided to go out and survey the damage. But while we were out there the wind began to pick up and we decided we better get back inside. This happened several more times. The wind would die down or stop and then soon it would begin anew and with even more force. Most of this time we were without power. But their power came back on very quickly after the storm, unlike a lot of people in the area. My aunt didn't have power again until a week later and when I left to go home to Texas 8 days later there were still people in the state without power.
When the storm was finally done, maybe around 3:00 or 3:30 pm, we went back outside to check out the damage. It was incredible! I couldn't believe the size of the branches laying on the ground. There was one laying on the roof of the garage, although it didn't look like there was much damage and thankfully later we found that there was not much. But there were multiple layers of stuff that had come down. Anything that could be knocked down by the wind had come down. Many of those things were blown into new places. One tree that came down had actually been blown across the road. They also had one tree laying on a grain bin but again it didn't appear to have much damage. And so they were lucky. WE were lucky.
Just like when you are driving down the highway and you come across an accident and you find yourself looking at the wreckage, so it is with weather related disasters. People like to drive around and see what damage was inflicted on others. Most towns in the area had lost electricity and enormous amounts of trees and branches had fallen. It was going to be a massive clean up in most places. Not to mention the ruined corn crop. One day while I was there, we drove to a small town called Clarence on Highway 30. I had driven through it on my way to dad's on the day of the storm. This town looked like it had been hit by the eye of a storm or massive tornado. Everyone had major damage...grain bins flattened and metal pieces thrown about, roofs torn off, giant trees uprooted taking the sidewalk with them. They were still without electricity and this was almost a week later.
Later we found out this type of storm was called a derecho. A derecho is a widespread, long lived storm with straight line winds up to 100 mph causing damage like a tornado or a hurricane but it has no eye. But I bet the people of Clarence, Iowa would disagree about the eye. The man that discovered and named this weather phenomenon was Gustavus D Hinrichs, a well educated German immigrant who settled in Davenport, Iowa in 1861. (Davenport is my hometown.) This storm began in southeast South Dakota and traveled 770 miles in 14 hours all the way to Ohio.
The majority of my time visiting my dad and step mom was spent helping my dad pick up branches, cut up trees into manageable pieces, load them into the gater and haul them to the burn pile at the back of the farm. Here's a picture of the gator with the very first load. I enjoy being outside, doing yard work and I enjoyed this time with my dad, helping him clean up their farm after this horrible storm. But I have probably never worked so hard in my life!
After seeing what this storm was capable of and the damage that it caused across the state of Iowa, I reflect back on the fact that I was driving in the beginnings of this storm and the fact that I was very, very lucky to have gotten to the house and safely inside before anything major happened to me. I am also grateful that both my dad and step mom were safe and that the majority of their damage was tied simply to trees. At one point my dad said that he counted 126 trees on the property and 35 of them had major damage from the storm. We worked 5 full days cleaning up and while it did look much, much better, he still had a lot of work to be done when I left to come back to Texas on Tuesday, August 18.
I'm including a few pictures of some of the trees that were down on the property and a picture of me in my new t-shirt (courtesy of my cousin, Kim, and Back Street Graphics).
So....needless to say, I survived......
For more information and pictures, search Iowa derecho or check out this link: Iowa Derecho.
