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Wow, where do I even begin? Aug 10th, 2020 Derecho. This was a high wind event for the central Iowa region and eastward. Photo thread will show high-end wind event damage I witnessed from communities like Ames, Ogden, Perry, Woodward, and Huxley. Huxley, IA receiving the worst.
Beginning with Huxley IA, Pulling into town you see pieces of roofs missing, trees shredded, trees down on power lines or on house, roads impassable, and damage everywhere. Here are some shots pulling into town. Also, fun to note, the bank's flag pole was bent at the base.
Continuing into town, Roads are clogged with trees, power lines, parts of homes, you name it. The thick smell of pine and wet wood all over town.
From there, I ran across an APT building that had the backside of its roof completely blown away. 2x4s rained down and pierced the roof a storage garage below. A man told me his son was on the top floor with his dog when the roof went. "Sounded like a tornado, no warning"
The wind was able to cave in the garage door of this home and rip the roof off as the supports failed and the garage collapsed. Another home, a lady told me that it was inside their living room, and the house wasn't stable to be inside. Roof partially torn away on another home.
More trees down all over town, these are just some of them. Shredded trees, a highschool stadium scoreboard bent over and trees on homes.
Lots of trees that fell on vehicles, some are completely smashed as this Ford, others I couldn't tell how significant the damage was. Blown out windows on homes and cars were common. Wooden powerlines were snapped in the high winds. A lot of roads are STILL impassable.
Massive trees completely uprooted throughout the town, as well as any unsecured signs that had no protection from the violent winds.
1/2 mile west of Huxley this barn and grain bins collapsed in the high winds and had the west-facing roof removed and stripped off.
Various grain bins and farms destroyed from violent winds from between Perry, IA, and Huxley for the next couple of slides. Cornfields FLATTENED.
More flattened corn and destroyed silo grain bins around the Woodward IA area.
Woodward, IA had damage to some structures in town. One wall completely disintegrated due to garage doors being blown in and the pressure had nowhere to go, the wall then failed.
Some sort of roofing structure completely torn off this building near a power plant 1 mile north of Woodward, IA. This was quite the mess.
More barns destroyed by violent winds between Woodward and Huxley. This area was especially difficult to traverse due to downed trees, power lines, and crews working rapidly to restore power after this wind event.
More grain bins completely smashed. One-piece I found in a field nowhere near a farmstead, who knows how far this traveled and it wasn't the only one. Eventually, I stopped taking photos of these because there are just too many damaged structures!
Finally, the scariest thing to me as a storm chaser was this road just south-southwest of Huxley IA. COMPLETELY SCOURED CLEAN. Smoothest dirt road in existence. this was a north/south road that no longer had gravel. Cornfields/grass on either side were completely flattened. Wow.
Incredible wind event yesterday in central Iowa. Something that I will remember for a long time. As always @nws and @NWSDesMoines are free to uses any photos they would like. Farmers and communities are truly in a disaster zone and are in need of help, gotta love 2020.
