Wisconsin no relation property damage
The August 2020 Midwest derecho was a powerful derecho affecting the Midwestern United States on August 10–11, 2020, primarily eastern Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. It caused high winds and spawned an outbreak of weak tornadoes. Some areas reported torrential rain and large hail.Damage was moderate to severe across much of the affected area, as sustained wind speeds of 70 miles per hour (110 kilometers per hour; 31 meters per second) were prevalent. The greatest damage occurred in eastern Iowa, and northern Illinois, where multiple tornadoes touched down. The highest winds occurred in Iowa, measured at 126 mph (203 km/h; 56.3 m/s) and highest estimated from post-event damage surveys at 140 mph (225 km/h; 62.6 m/s).Millions across the Midwest were affected by wide-scale utility disruptions, residential and commercial property damage, and severe damage to corn and soybean crops. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was the most severely damaged, suffering a near-complete blackout that lasted for weeks in some areas, widespread and severe property damage, and an estimated loss of at least half of the city's tree canopy. The derecho caused over $11 billion (2020 USD) in damages and spawned a years-long cleanup effort.Impact and damage
Overview
In its October 2020 review, NOAA updated its database of billion-dollar disasters to include this event (along with other disasters from the summer season) with preliminary estimated damages averaging 7.5 billion dollars, before upgrading the estimate to $11 billion. As of October 2020, it is the most costly thunderstorm in US history. The financial toll of this storm was the second-highest for an individual 2020 U.S. natural disaster, surpassed only by Hurricane Laura's preliminary damage figure of $14.1 billion.Utilities and telecommunications disruption
Utility disruption and infrastructure damage occurred in much of the storm's path. Early estimates showed more than a million customers without power. Between August 10 and 13, 1.9 million customers were affected by 1.4 million maximum simultaneous outages—759,000 in Illinois, 585,000 in Iowa, 283,000 in Indiana, and 345,000 in other states, including Missouri, Wisconsin, and Michigan.Three days after the derecho, over 100,000 customers in Illinois, and 200,000 in Iowa, remained without power. The damage in some affected areas was so extensive that Mid-American Energy sent linemen to neighboring utility Alliant Energy to assist. The Duane Arnold Energy Center cooling towers were damaged and the nuclear reactor was shut down permanently. By August 23, Alliant announced that power had been restored to 99 percent of their affected customers. Mediacom, a telecommunications company, reported 340,000 customers lost Internet access in the affected states.Utility damage and outages
After the storm, Linn County peaked at over 95 percent power loss to residents due to infrastructure damage, with Cedar Rapids experiencing a maximum 98 percent power loss. Thousands of electrical poles and miles of wire were downed; many residential gas connections were also broken. Radio masts and towers were damaged or destroyed (pictured right), causing radio outages and dysfunctional mobile phone service.On August 12, Mediacom said 57,000 modems were offline across eastern Iowa, most of them in the Cedar Rapids area; two days later, nearly 10,000 of those customers were still without service. On August 14, a hundred engineering and support personnel of the Iowa National Guard were activated to assist the region. A week after the storm, 75,000 Iowans, most of them in Linn County, still lacked electricity. On August 19, the Linn County Rural Electric Cooperative announced 99 percent power restoration to its customers. By September 22, hundreds of Mediacom and ImOn customers still remained without internet service.Property damage
Almost every structure within the 75 square miles (190 km2) Cedar Rapids city limits, including residences, 20 schools, and businesses, were damaged in some way, much of it severe, some of it catastrophic.Hundreds of thousands of trees, for which Cedar Rapids was known, were severely damaged or felled by the storm with both Cedar Rapids and nearby Marion estimated to have lost half or more of their tree canopy from the storm; professional arborists and state foresters urged residents to seek professional help for their tree damage, saying it could take months to clean up. Many local businesses were forced to close, some indefinitely due to damage. Most of the city's roads became impassible due to storm debris. Without electrical refrigeration, food spoiled en masse while trash and recycling pickup had been halted until August 31 due to impassable streets causing bags of rotting trash to line curbsides, subjecting them to scavengers.
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