The derecho that ravaged Iowa hit nine days ago, and only now are people starting to pay attention to what some in that state are calling "Iowa's Katrina."
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| Major damage in Iowa from the August 10 derecho. Winds likely reached as high as 140 in a few spots. This is a huge disaster |
The slow response to such a big disaster is a little shocking considering the scale of destruction. Close to 90 percent of all properties in Cedar Rapids alone received at least some damage.
More than 1,000 homes in Cedar Rapids have declared uninhabitable. Statewide, more than 8,000 homes are damaged or destroyed. Many people are going on a week and a half without electricity.
At least 14 million acres of Iowa crop land were damaged or destroyed, up from the estimate of 10 million acres reported last week.
The lack of help has caused scenes that did remind of Katrina. There is inadequate shelter, so you have people living in roofless apartment buildings, or in tents outdoors. Children and their parents are surrounded by dangerous debris, including lots of boards with rusty nails, soggy drywall, building mold problems, wires dangling and a tangle of fallen trees.
"It feels like I'm in a third world nation, this to me seems as if its our version of Katrina minus the deaths," said Cedar Rapids resident Kelly McMahon, as quoted by television station KCRG the other day. "Five days in, where in the world is our government helping us out?"
Attention is finally focusing on Iowa, days later than it should have. Major media outlets have swooped in to tell us all about it. Donald Trump was in the state yesterday pledging federal help. People in other parts of the nation are now looking for ways to help. Charities and GoFundMe pages are appearing.
Still, this is different from other major American disasters. Usually the response is almost immediate. Not this time.
WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?
From what I can tell several factors have influenced the lack of response to the destruction in Cedar Rapids and elsewhere in Iowa.
Iowa is not exactly the media center of the universe. Local television stations and newspapers were on top of it from the start and did incredible work. But the force of the storm was initially missed by national media.
Derechos are lines of intense thunderstorms covering long distances. I think they can often be dismissed as severe thunderstorms, the kind many of us get every summer. People do know that derechos are more widespread and destructive than regular storms. But this one was way, way, worse and we outside Iowa were slow to realize this.
It took time to understand the scale and breadth of the storm strength and damage. It's pretty easy to see the direction and strength of a hurricane slowly lumbering onto a shoreline city. A derecho roars through in just a few hours, and you don't immediately understand the scale and area hit hardest.
National Weather Service meteorologists over the past week who have been studying the damage tell us the storm was stronger, and covered a larger area than first reported. True, we had a report immediately after the storm of a 112 mph wind gust in one town.
But meteorologists now say that winds in a few spots likely gusted to 130 mph. There's at least one report of an estimated gust to 140 mph. An accurately measured gusts reached 126 mph. This was a more intense derecho than most experienced meteorologists can ever recall. Gusts of 100 mph sometimes occur in the worst derechos, but 140 mph?
The destruction was worse than many of us would have expected because we're used to severe storms lasting only a five, ten, maybe 15 minutes at most before they move on. This lasted 45 minutes in any given spot, helping to add to the damage.
It was hard to get the word out about the destruction in the immediate aftermath of this storm. Power was out to virtually everyone, and communications were spotty at best. Most private citizens upload videos of storms to YouTube and other social media as soon as a storm is over. Most people in Iowa couldn't do that. I didn't start seeing some of the more dramatic videos until days after the storm.
I think a main reason, if not THE main reason why help for Iowa is slow is because we're dealing with so much already. The pandemic. Black Lives Matter. Chaos in Washington. Other disasters that keep coming one on top of each other, unrelentingly. We're all exhausted and confused.
As I write this, wildfires are rapidly worsening in California and moving into populated areas. This could be another enormous disaster in the making. What would be our reaction to that? The Atlantic Ocean is now bubbling with new hurricanes a possibility soon. It any of these storms grow monstrous storm and God forbids hits the United States, what then?
The only time I've seen a natural disaster in the United States with an anemic response at first was Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But that disaster was on a much bigger scale than "Iowa's Katrina" this month. Katrina cost at least $81 billion in damage.
I worry as we get into the heart of the deadly late summer/autumn season of destructive wildfires and dangerous hurricanes, people in need won't get the help they require. I don't have confidence the Trump administration has the capacity or the desire to provide coordinated aid. The federal response to the pandemic, as we all know, has been pretty pathetic so far, despite the efforts of heroic medical professionals and essential workers.
As terrible as the Iowa derecho was, as devastating as it was to Iowa farmers and homeowners and residents, this disaster wasn't nearly as bad as some of the worst calamities this nation has faced in recent decades.
I don't know how we step it up for the inevitable next disaster, but we sure have to try.
More videos:
The storms lasted a LONG time. This video goes on for a half hour but it's worth watching. Gusts through most of the video keep increasing. People must have thought it would never end. A huge gust would come, then it would calm down a bit, likely leading people to think the worst was over. Then an even bigger gust would come. Rinse and repeat as the storm kept escalating. Watch:
Here's a video explainer from a budding Cedar Rapids entrepreneur who was in his painting business shop as it was destroyed. Spoiler: He survived, and seems to have a remarkably good attitude. But still! Both terrifying and sad. Things get really horrifying starting about 3:40 or 3:45 into the video:
Inside Edition's report on the derecho:
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