‘Everybody is helping everybody. It’s what we do’

A week after a derecho with hurricane-force winds pummelled Iowa and neighboring states, the clean up and restoration effort is far from over.

“It’s devastated. It’s hard to even picture,” said Tom Zarifis, a former Crestonian who lives in Le Grand, just east of Marshalltown. “We had one of these, like 10 years ago or so, but it wasn’t near as destructive as this.”

As a result of the storm Aug. 10, Zarifis suspects his residence and car are a total loss. He has since set up camp outside his home, complete with a tent, hammock, chairs and an ice chest, as he struggles to secure a cellular signal strong enough to upload and send photos to his insurance adjuster.

But, despite the destruction, he’s taking it in stride. Just two weeks prior to Monday’s storm, Zarifis had returned to work after a nine month hiatus, during which he underwent 35 radiation treatments and three rounds of chemo therapy. He said perseverance is part of his life story. He’s happy to report that he is now considered cancer-free.

Zarifis said he wasn’t expecting the storm when he woke up last Monday morning.

“I got up and saw these notifications, weather statements, on my phone and started reading what was coming this way – 80-mile-per-hour winds, that the storm was moving at 70-miles-per-hour and thought, this isn’t going to be good,” he said. “I looked at the radar and we were in the eye of it. It was headed right for us.”

According to the National Weather Service, the storm traveled 770 miles, from South Dakota and Nebraska to Ohio in 14 hours.

“Everywhere I go it’s just destruction,” said Zarifis. “Grain bins destroyed ... all the crops just leveled everywhere, trees snapped and uprooted everywhere you look. People’s houses destroyed with trees laying on them, roofs missing and windows blown out, cars crushed.”

On Thursday, Zarifis drove into Marshalltown to scope out the damage. He said the residents of that community were still trying to rebuild after the E-F-3 tornado hit two years ago.

“It’s just hard to fathom,” he said. “What’s so unreal about it is just the widespread destruction.”

Zarifis said the recovery effort has been slow but believes it’s because there is such a great need and limited resources available.

“It’s really been, for the most part, from what I’ve seen, neighbors helping neighbors with clean up,” Zarifis said. “There hasn’t been a whole lot of contact, which is kind of strange, but everything is spread so thin. All week you’ve heard sirens. Emergency vehicles going all sorts of places. medical helicopters have been flying over daily. Everyone is just trying to maintain a little bit.”

Amy Skogerson of Adel, who serves on the Southern Iowa Rural Water Association board, said she was at her law office in Van Meter with her entire staff when the storm hit just after their Monday morning team meeting.

“We definitely did not anticipate it,” said Skogerson. “I can’t say that I checked the weather in the morning, but I don’t think anyone in our office knew it was coming. ... The electricity started to flicker and it went on and off several times before it went off completely and then we all just sat together for 30 or 40 minutes before we felt it had died down long enough for it to be safe to go out in it.”

After the storm had passed, Skogerson and some of her coworkers jumped in a vehicle to survey their area.

“It was interesting because some places had a lot of damage similar to a tornado, where some places were extremely damaged and some were not. But by and large, it was a lot of trees down, lots of branches down and the splattering of things here and there,” she said.

Skogerson said on the east side of Highway 169, the cornfields were entirely flat, whereas the westside appeared unscathed.

At the office, Skogerson they were without power for about 24 hours, but at home in Adel, it was over 48 hours before power was restored.

As she checked in with friends, Skogerson said Alliant had been focusing heavily on the restoration effort in Cedar Rapids, and from what some people were told, it could be up to a week before friends in Grinnell had power.

Despite the power and internet outages, Skogerson said she was still able to continue two adoption hearings, virtually, from her Airstream camper, which generates enough energy to power her computer.

Following severe weather events, Skogerson said it’s important to watch for advisories and warning, such as boil orders which may occur from water plants losing power.

Sergeant Deric Oshel of the Linn County Sheriff Office said the storm, which passed through Cedar Rapids just after noon, was unexpected and fast moving. When he heard the alert, he called to tell his son at home to secure the patio furniture. But as the storm moved in, the wind was blowing through the sheriff’s office “like crazy” and water was coming through the windows.

Oshel said the storm seemed worse than a tornado.

“Tornados comes through and it’s a path with a 5 mile radius, where as this is 75 square miles ... Everywhere you go you see destruction. It’s not like you just drive through Townline and look at the high school or SWCC. This is the whole city getting damaged everywhere. It’s just non stop.”

“It took me almost two hours to get home from work the other night, and it’s usually a 15 minute drive,” Oshel said. “Everybody was just backed up and roads were closed, no matter what route you take.”

As of Friday, the American Red Cross established two emergency shelters and were searching for volunteers to drive displaced residents from the south side of Cedar Rapids to its downtown shelter.

With out power, many stores, including Hy-Vee and Walmart had to dispose of its perishable food items.

“We are talking dumpsters full,” Oshel said.

Immediately following the storm, Oshel said residents were working on securing generators and chainsaws, which were difficult to come by as nothing was open. Camp sites began popping up on neighborhood lawns across the city as many residents were displaced. Oshel said he’s got his refrigerator, freezer and a few fans hooked up on a generator.

Due to the shortage of tow trucks needed to haul away crushed cars and overturned semis, Oshel said city workers pulled their snow plows out and used them to clear cars, semis and trees from roadways as the DOT works on removing debris, as well.

Gov. Kim Reynolds and the Iowa National Guard arrived in Cedar Rapids on Friday. As of noon Friday, 67,000 of the 97,000 Alliant Energy Customers in Linn County were still without power. Alliant says it could be weeks before all power is restored.

Oshel said the National Guard is helping with clean up. He said clean up crews are coming from as far as Wisconsin and Michigan to aid in the recovery effort, as well.

Adjutant General Benjamin Corell, commander of the Iowa National Guard, said the devastation he is seeing from the derecho is the worst storm damage he’s ever seen in Iowa. He said he’s spent decades responding to Iowa storm disaster zones, but this looks like a coastal disaster area.

“The last time I saw this was in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,” Corell said during a press conference.

Despite the devastation, Oshel said he is seeing a lot of generosity happening.

“Everybody’s helping everybody,” he said. “We’ve got people saying, ‘Hey, if you need a shower, come over here,’ ‘If you need to wash your clothes, we’ll do it.’ Anything. It’s Iowa. Everybody is helping everybody. It’s what we do.”