I couldn’t find a thread on this specifically (like the thread about the explosion in Beirut or other big news items). Only tangential topics, like “Who is staying in hotels?” and “Don’t assume someone else called in the power outage”.
Here are two articles from WaPo on the subject, focusing on:
Why is it being so under-reported in the news?
The devastation is BIG.
In another article I saw (but I can’t find again just now), the writer asks why, four days after the event, Trump has yet to declare a disaster area there.
(No, discobot, this topic is not similar to “Corn Production in Iowa”.)
The Cedar Rapids Gazette has good articles and reporting not only about CR but Iowa at large. No paywall. I’m guessing the Des Moines Register does also but I don’t know if there is a pay wall.
I grew up there. My sister, BIL, two nephews, a brother and family, two foster sisters and a foster brother live there. The devastation is incredible. For instance, the city has lost half it’s tree canopy. Food and safe water is now obtainable. Power is still out. Cellular is very spotty. It is a hardy city, it will recover. It has a lot of practice with very bad flooding. This is worse in that it is the entire city, not just a flood plain.
Even though I am relatively close, it has been under-reported even locally (there may have been a mention). There was a segment on ABC news today.
Brian
Forgot that part-my brother lives in Winfield, Illinois and it is not much better there. Normally he would be the big brother who would rush to Cedar Rapids to help our siblings there. He is having trouble getting out his garage because of downed trees and then out of his neighborhood. He’s helping neighbors in Illinois because he knows Iowans will be helping their neighbors where we all grew up.
When a derecho hit Memphis and surrounding areas in 2003, it did not get national attention. And, as with Iowa, the devastation was immense. My power was restored after a week. I went online to the forums I posted on and nobody knew what had happened and wondered where I had been.
I just happened to talk to a friend in Des Moines Monday night and she mentioned that a bad windstorm had downed a tree in her yard. I don’t think she knew how bad things were at that time since she still had power. Later I saw the derecho posts here and realized what had happened.
I’ve never heard the term derecho before! (So, thanks for the learning!)
Any chance its being overlooked because the word isn’t widely known?
I mean, people know hurricanes and tornadoes are dangerous and damaging. Using a different word might make people assume it must be a lesser kind of event.
I’m just imagining that any mention of hurricane or tornado, automatically makes the news and draws their attention. Just a thought anyway!
It was an impressive line of storms that streached really far north to south, and it contained many low level tornados, which are still quite windy. It is being reported that the Chicago area alone had 13 tornados that afternoon. As to why the damage in Iowa isn’t being widely reported, I would just be speculating.
I knew about the storm because I work with people who live around Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, or the Quad Cities, and they sent out emails saying they were logging off because a storm was coming. But I didn’t know the extent of the devastation until I started googling the next day for details (and like a lot of folks, learned the word “derecho”). Many of my co-workers did not have power for two or three days.
I was going to say the same. I lived in Illinois from 1962 to 1987 and I’d never heard the term ‘derecho’ until this thread.
In my recollection, devastating wind storms were also the norm in the midwest in the summer months. Is this really that exceptional vs the last say 20 years? Not trying to be insensitive to any Iowans.
I had heard of derechos before this, but yes, it’s not a commonly used word.
Some of those “devastating windstorms” were also derechos, they just weren’t commonly called that.
I think part of the problem is that while a tornado is a discreet thing that can be viewed as a discreet thing, a drecho is “just” a lot of wind over a wide area for a long time.
And while it seems Iowa had it the worst in this derecho other places also got hit, most notably Illinois and part of my state, Indiana. I have neighbors that went a week without power. So a lot of local media outlets were focused more on local problems than what was going on in Iowa.
I think it should have had more media attention, not just because of Iowans suffering, but also because down the line this is going to affect people in the rest of the country because crops were destroyed. On the other hand, given how many people in the store I work at seem to have zero clue where their food comes form or how it gets to the store, plenty would hear “crop damage” and say “how does that affect me?” I dunno - do you eat food?
We had a derecho of somewhat lesser strength move through Pennsylvania a month or two ago. I had never heard the term before, and I’m a weather geek. I live in the Philadelphia suburbs, and I was without power for a little over three days. Lots of trees and tree parts downed.
When I finally got power back and updated the family, I had to use a version of my favorite Onion article: And there are still thousands of Amish without power.
My sisters, brothers, associated spouses, nieces, nephews still without power a week later. If they are lucky cooking on a gas grill outside. Half the city’s trees gone. The effect on farmers will be massive, stretching to people across the world via the food supply chain. Cedar Rapids, IA is a resilient city, the people there will take care of each other but they can use help, please donate to the Red Cross if you can.
Illinois has devastation also. I have a brother there also, he had damage and power loss, though not as severe or prolonged. This derecho was 40 miles wide of 110mph winds. Started in my state, Nebraska, and didn’t stop.
I live in the Quad Cities and one branch of my family tree is mostly in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area, both of which were hit much, much worse than the QCA - and my own power was out for a grand total of 3 days, 4 hours.
I will repeat - and I did start a thread about this in the meantime - that if your utilities are out, never assume that someone else in the neighborhood notified them. CALL THEM. I live in a large apartment complex, and the repairs here were delayed because NOBODY from two buildings informed the electric company that their power was out. One of the residents uses home dialysis, and had they known this, that building would have been bumped to the top of the list.
One week ago today as I write this. What a week it’s been.
Likewise, except that my trees survived. I have a couple big old silver maples that I expect to turn into kindling each time there’s a major storm but they only lost a few smaller branches. Next door, a neighbor’s smallish (20’) maple they planted some years ago was snapped off at the trunk. Go figure. But, yeah, it was with bemusement that I suddenly heard people acting as though everyone knows the word “derecho”.
Four days without power meant clearing out the fridge and freezer and largely starting over. Fortunately, we could afford it with just some grumbling but it did inspire us to donate to the Northern Illinois Food Bank since I’m sure a lot of other people found losing all of their refrigerated foods more of a devastation than an inconvenience. And, since people keep asking, ComEd won’t reimburse groceries lost to power outages unless they caused the outage. Storms, etc don’t count for reimbursement.
And I believe that is why it is being more often mentioned with a specific name. People hear of a tornado or a swarm of tornados and they sit up and pay attention. “A lot of wind along a long frontal line” doesn’t really register in many people’s mentality as something to take notice of. Call it by a specific name and it clicks that it is a serious disaster event.