Severe weather hits Iowa
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) – Streets were littered with uprooted trees and debris and some 35,000 homes and businesses had no power in Cedar Rapids after a night of severe weather across Iowa, officials said. “It was a pretty wild night,” police Sgt. Tim Camp said Monday.
Twenty to 25 homes were damaged in Cedar Rapids and in nearby Palo and Covington, Linn County Emergency Management Director Ned Wright said. He said no serious injuries were reported.
“When you’re looking at the total picture, it’s minimal,” Wright said of the damage.
Fire and rescue workers reported a tornado but the National Weather Service had not yet confirmed that, Wright said.
“It’s really a mess. I’m looking at probably five to six football lengths of tree after tree down,” said Lisha Coffey, spokeswoman for Alliant Energy.
“We have at least 2,000 lines down and 100 poles,” Coffey said.
One of those trees was a 60-foot fir that snapped in half in Kathleen Wieland’s front yard.
“It was so windy. I could see things blowing all across the street and I could hear all the trees snapping,” Wieland said.
In addition to damage to houses, officials said the roof was torn off an apartment building.
Heavy rain flooded many streets in Cedar Rapids, a city of about 120,000 people in northeast Iowa.
“A lot of rain, sideways rain,” Camp said.
The storm system plowed eastward during the night and into Monday morning. Wind damage was reported in parts of Michigan, along with up to 2 inches of rain, and there were scattered power outages in central and northern Illinois.
In western Iowa’s Woodbury County, storms created a trail of damage up to 5 miles long and 2 miles wide in some areas, Woodbury County Emergency Management Director Gary Brown said.
There also were reports of hail as big as baseballs, and widespread power outages, he said.
Several people were taken to a hospital after lightning struck a garage in the Danbury area, Brown said. A hospital spokeswoman said she couldn’t release any information.
Crops suffered severe damage.
“They were stripped from the hail,” Brown said. “I’m sure some of them are total losses. There are no leaves left on some of the plants.”
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On the Net:
National Weather Service: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/wrhq/nwspage.html
Cedar Rapids: http://www.cedar-rapids.org/