A Mighty Wind

For some reason it was the power going off that woke me. It was around 4am Monday morning, the second last night of the kids and I’s two week stay with my grandpa on the old Wagoner family farm in Iowa (more on that another day). The weather had been hot and muggy for days, but we had received some light rain earlier that day. At some point after we had gone to sleep, all that heat and humidity conspired to bring some serious weather hurtling down upon central Iowa. Even though the lights were out there was enough regular lightening to enable easy navigation to the living room. When I got there I met grandpa who was just coming down the stairs. The two of us fumbled around for a few minutes before he found where the kids had left the flashlight. We went out onto the porch to have a quick look. “I don’t like it” was all he said before we went back into the living room.  A few moments later I heard a popping sound that initially made me think of hail, but was actually a tree snapping over near that corner of the house. We grabbed the kids and headed for the cellar. About twenty minutes later – during which Thomas got to do a wee in the old shower drain - the wind died down enough that we decided it was scarier in the cellar than out of it. Up we went.

Grandpa reckons it was the worst storm he has seen in all his 50years on the farm. The next day the place was a mess with assorted trees and limbs everywhere.That night, grandpa and I played cribbage by candlelight and it was hard to sleep in the air-conditioning free heat and humidity. The power came back around 11am Tuesday.



Grandpa had to use the chainsaw before we were able to clear the driveway. Honestly, I think he was kind of enjoying it. Everybody came through safely and no real damage was done to the farm, but now he has plenty of cleanup work to keep him busy and firewood for the winter. Before lunch he had set about fixing fence in a race to get as much of it repaired as possible before the cows discovered the storm had given them the gift of free will. I hope that when I am 83 I can still swing a chainsaw when needed.

All amusement aside, we were lucky.  The cornfields for miles around had been blasted flat as pancakes (think ‘tunguska of corn’). The little town of Garwin (500 residents) is just 4 miles down the road. They had a  to evacuate to the high school because of a gas leak. The substation was damaged, with lines down and even poles snapped over, so they are going to be without power for the better part of a week (the farm was reconnected on Tuesday morning). The Red Cross even set up a shelter and food distribution centre at the Garwin Fire station.

I took some video when we were in the centre of town and this 3min news report on the storm includes lots of video footage from Garwin.

I looked around as grandpa drove out the driveway to take us to the airport. It wasn't exactly the image of the farm I had intended to take with me for  how ever many years it will be be until we can return. Still, all in all, a rather exciting close to our visit.