On Monday, August 10th, the Rapids & Affiliates location in Eastern Iowa was affected by a derecho – a severe storm with wind speeds similar to those of a hurricane. To qualify as a derecho, the storm must meet three criteria:
- Have a wind damage swath greater than 250 miles
- Have wind gusts of 58 mph or greater along most of its path
- Have pockets of 75 mph or greater wind speeds.
When it hit Hiawatha, a suburb of Cedar Rapids a few miles away from our office, Linn County Emergency Management reported wind gusts of 112 mph, which would have qualified as a category 3 hurricane! We also recently learned that the National Weather Service recorded wind speeds of up to 140 mph in Cedar Rapids, a speed that falls into the range of a category 4 hurricane!
The severe weather alarms only gave us a few minutes to prepare before this storm blew into town and upended our lives.
The winds and rain caused damage to our office’s roof, windows, dock doors, and showroom. It also overturned some of the trailers in our parking lot. We lost power and Internet. Thankfully, no one on site was injured.
The surrounding community also suffered. Many homes had some kind of structural damage, whether from the sheer power of the wind, falling trees, or something else – and hundreds of thousands of people were left without power. The cell service was also affected, leaving many without the ability to reach out to friends and family.
While the general destruction initially affected Rapids’ ability to communicate with customers and fulfill orders, thanks to our hardworking staff and community, our warehouse has been cleaned up and we were able to resume shipping and working on-site on Wednesday.
Our dedicated team got 45 orders shipped on Wednesday (just 1.5 days later) and 87 orders shipped on Thursday. As of Friday, we feel we are back to about 95% capacity in terms of order fulfillment.
A construction team is addressing the roof and other damages. We have several generators supplying power, and our staff is working diligently to serve our customers despite the construction efforts and temporary seating arrangements.
The images below show the damage our office suffered from the storm and the progress we’ve made toward recovery.
The Derecho as seen by some of our surveillance cameras.
If you’re short on time, start watching at 3:35 to see the greatest impact on our facility.
Rapids Incredibly Swift Response
Overhead view of the temporarily repaired roof around the dock area and disaster response clean up.
