Powerful storm leaves 2 dead in Midwest
IOWA CITY, Iowa — Hundreds of thousands across the Midwest remained without electricity Tuesday after a powerful storm packing 100 mph winds battered the region a day earlier, causing widespread damage to millions of acres of crops and killing at least two people.
The storm known as a derecho tore from eastern Nebraska across Iowa and parts of Wisconsin and Illinois, blowing over trees, flipping vehicles and causing widespread damage to property and crops. The storm left downed trees and power lines that blocked roadways in Chicago and its suburbs. After leaving Chicago, the most potent part of the storm system moved over north-central Indiana.
In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds said early estimates indicate 10 million acres were damaged in the nation’s top corn producing state and many grain bins were destroyed. That would be nearly a third of the roughly 31 million acres of land farmed in the state. The most significant damage was to the corn crop, with nearly a month away from the beginning of harvest.
Satellite imagery shows extensive crop damage through about one-third of the center of the state from east to west.
In Fort Wayne, Ind., Isabel E. Atencio died at a hospital after firefighters pulled her from debris inside her mobile home after high winds rolled it onto its side Monday night, officials said. Firefighters found the 73-year-old woman under debris inside her toppled trailer and discovered she was clutching a 5-year-old boy believed to be her grandson, said Adam O’Connor, deputy chief of the Fort Wayne Fire Department. The boy had minor injuries.
In Iowa, a 63-year-old bicyclist died after he was struck by one of several large trees that fell Monday on a bike trail outside of Cedar Rapids, the Linn County Sheriff ’s Office said.
A derecho is not quite a hurricane. It has no eye, and its winds come across in a line. But the damage it is likely to do spread over such a large area is more like an inland hurricane than a quick, more powerful tornado, according to Patrick Marsh, science support chief at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.