Know there was a derecho/tornado in the MW?

[Orchidflower]

I have to ask--having no electricity for almost a week--if it was on the news that there was a derecho, which seems to be an ultra-fast moving tornado, in the cornbelt area of the Midwest last week (July 18 I think)? Century old trees uprooted and crashed into cars, houses and so forth. Quite the scene. Brought in electric company people and tree trimmers from 4 States. But was it on the news at all? This is an area of 400,000, so I was wondering if it made the news. LOTS of damage here, tho.

Derecho:
Derecho - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Ronstar]

Late on the night of the 19th, the tent for a wedding reception we were at was toppled by high winds. (after we left) About 60 people were rescued by the fire dept. My electricity was off during the night, and my phone service took a spike that fried my line to my Directv box, which in turn garbled my security system. I didnt see anything on the news about any damage locally.

 

[Moemg]

I did see a mention of it in our newspaper .

 

[brewer12345]

Therehave been so many tornadoes in the midwest this year that the media goons probably figured that whatever celebrity pecadillo ocurred would probably sell more papers.

 

[bssc]

Was Britney involved? No mention here in Arizona.

 

[Orchidflower]

Maybe it was the 19th? It caused alot of damage, but luckily seems nobody died--except one little 4 year old boy was killed when camping with his parents. Seems a tree crushed their tent. Their 7 y.o. was hurt, also.
This derecho/tornado came SO FAST--which is what they are known for--that there really was NO time to flee. Sad.
Wow, Ronstar...that bride will never forget her wedding day. What a way to remember, tho.

 

[happy2bretired]

Then that must be the Omaha area...

 

[happy2bretired]

Maybe not...I didn't read that right. The one in Omaha killed a Boy Scout over on the Iowa side of the river in a Boy Scout camp.

 

[Orchidflower]

I cannot remember if the boy was on the Illinois or Iowa side, but I am right on the border at the Mississippi River. Again...sad.

 

[Ronstar]

Maybe it was the 19th? It caused alot of damage, but luckily seems nobody died--except one little 4 year old boy was killed when camping with his parents. Seems a tree crushed their tent. Their 7 y.o. was hurt, also.
This derecho/tornado came SO FAST--which is what they are known for--that there really was NO time to flee. Sad.
Wow, Ronstar...that bride will never forget her wedding day. What a way to remember, tho.

I heard about the little boy - what a tragedy! - these things do come up so fast that there is no way to prepare / escape

Also, I found out yesterday that the groom at the wedding I attended lost his wedding ring during the rescue - but he found it the next day. The bride is worried that all this is some kind of omen.

 

[UncleHoney]

A link to some information about the storm from the National Weather Service.

Destructive Straight Line Winds Sweep Across Eastern Iowa and Northwest Illinois

Back in the late 70's or early 80's there was a similar storm in the same region that did a lot of damage to DW's uncle's farm around Mt Pleasant Ia. There was major damage to out buildings and barns and it mowed down about 40 acres of mature hardwoods. It wasn't a tornado, just straight line winds.

 

[Orchidflower]

I read that the little 9 month old girl had her head smashed and was in a coma, but she, too, died the other day. They had 4 of their own and 3 foster kids, and lost 2 children from this incredibly fast moving tornado-like thing.
There was just not enough time to get to safety as this thing is the fastest tornado I have ever seen, and known for it's fast movement. And NO warning whatsoever. No black clouds until right before it hit or anything. Scary!!!!

 

[flipstress]

We were in the Quad Cities this past weekend, visiting BF's relatives in Davenport, IA, and Moline, IL. They told us about the "derecho"--I had never heard of such before.

We drove around and looked at lots of trees uprooted in Moline in the cemetery and all over town. There were also trees still fallen against some people's houses. Apparently, there's a lot of price-gouging going on by opportunistic tree-cutting professionals (or whatever they're called). As of last Saturday, some residents still had no electricity.

Before the derecho, there was flooding in the area, too, so the Bix Beiderbecke jazz fest was held in the stadium rather than the usual park by the Mississippi.

I see you are in the IL-IA border, Orchidflower. Glad you were not harmed.

I don't read the newspaper or follow the news, so I can't say if the story was carried in the papers here in Wisconsin. We only heard about it from BF's cousin when we called them last week before visiting.

 

[Goonie]

I was over in Princeton IL (a little over 50 miles straight east of the Quad Cities) last Friday to have lunch with some of the public works guys that I know over there. However, they had to cut lunch short that day to continue the storm clean-up. Lots of big, old trees were snapped to pieces and/or fallen. Most of the trees that I saw that were damaged or destroyed, were either mostly dead or at least hollowed out to start with.....it just took nature's chainsaw to trim them. The PW guys were heading out to the city cemetery where they said about 40 trees where wiped out.

I'm about 35-40 miles further straight east from Princeton, and we had a little wind but not much. Gusts were only somewhere around 30mph, while Princeton's were around 65-70mph. We had no wind damage at all here in town.

Thankfully, most of the time the wind, heavy rain, hail, etc., pretty much fizzle out by time they get to us......or else the storms split and track to the north and the south of us.

 

[W2R]

Orchidflower and Goonie, I am glad that you are all right after that derecho.

Derechos are a phenomenon that I am mainly familiar with in a textbook context. They seem to be uncommon, or at least I cannot remember the last time I heard of one happening. However they apparently do happen more than I had thought. If anybody is interested, the National Weather Service provides a very good, factual informational page on derechos here.