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Re: Hey Garry Are You Okay? - Landlord Forum thread 360842

Re: Hey Garry Are You Okay? by Garry on September 16, 2020 @19:46

                              
Sorry I haven't been on for over a month. We in Iowa suffered what the call a "derecho"---a very powerful storm that packed winds of 100-120 miles per hour. It hit on Monday, Aug 10., and lasted for 40 minutes.It was 50-75 miles wide, and it went for 700 miles, from Western Nebraska, to the Mississippi river. It came so fast, that NO ONE, including all govt. entities had more than a 2 hour warning. My county, Linn, in eastern Iowa got hit the hardest. Trump even flew in a week later, and declared several counties in Iowa as natural disaster areas. The straight lines winds totally flattened over 10 million acres of corn----roughly a third of our corn crop (and our state produces the most corn of any state in the U.S.)

But what hit our county the worst, was the loss of over 50 percent of our trees-----over 25,000. We had gusts of 130 mph, which is category 2-3 on a hurricane scale. In fact, they are calling it a "land" hurricane. ALL, and I do mean ALL, communication STOPPED. No phones of any kind were working---dozens of cell towers were down. The first day it hit, there were about 1 million Iowans with NO electricity.

My own power was out for 9 days , some were without power for 3 weeks. I just got my phone, internet, and TV back on today thru the cable company. That's why I haven't been on the forum till now. The other thing was, we had SO MANY trees down EVERYWHERE, BLOCKING STREETS, that NO VEHICLES could drive more than 1-6 blocks before 1 or several LARGE tree were blocking the road. Police, fire, ambulances, etc, couldn't get anywhere, because of all the trees down.

As a result, gas and power companies had to call in HUNDREDS of trucks and personnel from all over the country. Roofers, tree companies, construction companies, and electric companies came from out-of-state by the dozens to help with the cleanup. And our Governor even called up our National Guard for help.

I, myself, have 19 SFH rentals. I suffered roof damage on 4 properties, 2 of which I will have to have the roofs replaced. Others have window, siding, and gutter damage, and just a few shingles missing in spots. I got lucky that on 4 properties where 2-3 foot diameter trees came down, they fell away from the house. I personally lost about $1,000 of food, because the power was out for so long. I had stocked up a 2nd refrigerator and a big freezer back in March when the virus first hit. Many gas stations and grocery stores were not able to sell gas or food because of no power for several days, and they had no backup generators. Food, Ice, generators, gas, and chain saws were non-existent for a week.

I realize that our problems in Iowa do not compare to the fires out west, or major hurricanes in the south and east, but Iowa has never went thru something as massive and destructive as this storm was. Thank you, L. for asking about me. Garry
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