Gazette Online, IA
07-18-07
Area cleans up as more storms loom
By Steve Gravelle
The Gazette
A second round, and maybe more, loomed Tuesday as Eastern Iowans mopped
up mostly minor damage from overnight storms.
"It looks like you'll be back under the gun shortly,'' said Tom Philip, meteorologist
at the National Weather Service's Davenport office.
The stationary front that stalled over northeast Iowa Monday remains in place,
along with the potential for heavy rains through midday Thursday. Philip said
heavy rain may come anywhere in an area bounded roughly by Belle Plaine,
Cascade, Wapello and Prophetstown, Ill.
The front "will meander across the area,'' he said. "There might be times when
the northern areas see more of the storms, and there will be times it wavers
south again.''
A flash flood watch remains in effect through this morning.
"Any rain's going to lead straight to runoff and flooding problems,'' Philip said.
"The atmosphere itself is pretty saturated, and the storms will be heavy rain
producers.''
In Washington, Iowa, city crews opened all streets Tuesday morning and started
to remove debris. Greg Johnson, assistant superintendent of the city's
maintenance and construction department, estimated it will take a week to clean
it all up.
A weather service assessment team confirmed the Washington damage was
caused by a tornado. The twister, with winds 90 to 100 mph, touched down about
5:50 p.m. Monday on the east side of town and moved south for about a halfmile.
Washington County Sheriff Chief Deputy Darren Dennler said most of the
damage was in the city of Washington, although some trees and power lines
were damaged in Riverside.
Jim Fawcett was caught in a sudden downpour Monday afternoon and pulled his
pickup to the side of the road on Highway 1 between Iowa City and Kalona, an
area where some corn is knocked flat on the ground.
"It rained 5 or 6 inches in half an hour. I've never seen anything like it,'' said
Fawcett, Iowa State University Extension crops specialist based in Iowa
City. ÔÔWith that much rain, soil turns to soup and everything went flat.''
The areas of flattened corn are spotty, just as the downpours were. Hail battered
some cornfields and ripped leaves from the tightly spaced stalks.
Losses in fields that go down at this stage of development are 15 percent to 25
percent of the normal yield, he said.
"That adds up, but it's not as bad as it looks now,'' Fawcett said.
"The corn will grow toward the sun and make a U in the stalk. It will be a
headache to harvest.''
He had no estimate by Tuesday on how much acreage was damaged.
The storm came at a critical time, as soybeans are flowering and pollinating.
Damage tothose plants can limit yield and also put the plants at risk for disease,
Washington County Extension Director Gene Mohling said.
"Some fields are heavily damaged from the hail and the wind. We've got
cornfields now that
are not much more than knee high,'' Mohling said.
ÿ
Utility crews had restored service to all but a few hundred of some 36,000 Alliant
Energy customers left in the dark Monday night. Alliant Energy spokesman Ryan
Stensland expected service to be restored to about 75 customers in northeast
Cedar Rapids and Marion, but some customers may still be without power this
morning ÿbc ,WED, ÿec in Oelwein, where crews were ÔÔliterally going door to
door.''
"It looks like we're going to get everyone up and running and in business again,
then we're going to get hit again,'' Stensland said.
Flooding so far has been minor and temporary, said Linn County Emergency
Management Coordinator Richard Mahaney.
"It was raining harder than the streets could clear them off,'' Mahaney said of
flooding Monday night along Blairs Ferry Road in Marion and Cedar Rapids.
"You've got to wait for it to catch up.''
While the heaviest rain was to the south, damaging hail fell mostly north of Cedar
Rapids. Hail stones 1.5 to 4 inches in diameter were reported in Cedar Falls, said
Larry Tisor, operations manager for Black Hawk County Emergency
Management.
The heavy rainfall forced Cedar Rapids to bypass untreated waste water to the
Cedar River beginning at 9 p.m. Monday with two of the city's sanitary sewers
and five manholes overflowing. Cedar Rapids Water Pollution Control reported
the bypass ended by 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, with trash pumps being used to
control the overflow. The discharge total remains unknown.
Jennifer Hemmingsen and Marlene Lucas of The Gazette contributed to this
story.