Iowa farmers assess losses after storm flattened cornfields

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By DAVID PITT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Farmers across a wide swath of Iowa are dealing with the heartbreaking aftermath of a rare wind storm that turned what was looking like a record corn crop into deep losses for many.

The storm, known as a derecho, slammed the Midwest with straight line winds of up to 100 miles per hour on Monday, gaining strength as it plowed through Iowa farm fields, flattening corn and bursting grain bins still filled with tens of millions of bushels of last year’s harvest.

“It’s a problem of two years of crops here. You’re still dealing with what you grew last fall and you’re trying to figure out how to prepare for what you’re growing this fall,” said Iowa State University agriculture economist Chad Hart.

Farms in Illinois and Indiana also reported crop and property damage, but not to the extent seen in Iowa.



Iowa Department of Transportation workers help with tree debris removal as grain bins from the Archer Daniels Midland facility are seen severely damaged in Keystone, Iowa, on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020. A storm slammed the Midwest with straight line winds of up to 100 miles per hour on Monday, gaining strength as it plowed through Iowa farm fields, flattening corn and bursting grain bins still filled with tens of millions of bushels of last year’s harvest. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette via AP)


Read more: https://apnews.com/377ba5de6a3b6008bfc7e47bd55c10a7

[Sherman A1]

1. This means that already high grocery prices will continue to climb

We can't catch a break this year.

[yaesu]

5. I think most of that corn goes to making High-fructose corn syrup but I may be wrong. Maybe

they're still doing the ethanol thing.

[central scrutinizer]

10. And ethanol

Most gas sold anymore contains ethanol.

[NutmegYankee]

16. It makes a lot of products

For instance the xanthan gum in most toothpastes is made from corn starch that is fed to a bacteria known to rot cabbage, which produces xanthan gum as a "slime".

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. Article says they have a glut of corn left over from last year, so not so much rise in prices. . .nt

[JT45242]

11. Unlikely due to what we grow here in Iowa

Iowa corn is overwhelmingly destined to be

1) ethanol
2) livestock feed
3) corn syrup

The sweet corn for human consumption would mostly have already been picked and is never stored in grain towers like the megacorporation site in the photo.

But crops have been so large for the last couple of years that they have been holding back feed corn to try to drive the prices up. It is also a secondary effect of the tariff war with China, Mexico, etc as less pork has been shipped overseas. So, I would doubt that it will drive prices up but the damage might keep proces from falling even lower on the corn.

[Sherman A1]

20. I must have been mistaken

That HFCS and livestock feed affect grocery store prices, my apologies.

[Botany]

2. derechos are from global warming

n/t

[OnlinePoker]

21. Nonsense.

They've been known of since the 1800's and the first use of the term was in an 1888 meteorological journal about an 1877 derecho that happened in Iowa.

[Bengus81]

3. Them and their RW buddies always chastise others who have a disaster happen...

Buy INSURANCE stupid!! So if they don't they don't have a policy covering everything then tough shit. Oh wait, Trump will bail them out with even more checks AKA buying votes.

[gab13by13]

4. Yeah we will pay more for food,

but not to worry, Trump's Socialism for farmers is probably on the way. Money to the states for first responders is another matter, at least to blue states.

Trump is one big fat living quid pro quo.

[House of Roberts]

7. Crop insurance.

[Lonestarblue]

8. Maybe Iowans should start listening ton God and not the climate change deniers.

Floods, damaging winds, extra-severe tornadoes—what does it take to convince people that climate change is having a negative impact on their livelihoods? Instead, they listen to lying Republicans paid millions of dollars by the fossil fuel lobbyists and to the cretin in the White House who can barely recognize his next Big Mac, never mind the science behind climate change.

[jayschool2013]

18. 3 of 4 U.S. House Districts filled by Democrats

Hope we can ride the blue wave and replace one of our GOP Senators this year, too.

How many of Texas' 36 U.S. House Districts are filled by Democrats?

I'll answer for you: 13.

Maybe Texans should stop listening to lying Republicans.

Here's to a blue Texas this year, too.

[usaf-vet]

9. I'll bet before AUGUST 20th. Millions if not billions of our tax dollars will be headed to IOWA

Got to buy those votes.

Oh! Sorry got to help those farmers who vote.

Oh! Oh! Sorry, I forgot Grassley is one of the conduits along with Graham who are building a Sept/Oct political surprise against Biden / Harris. You know the Russian - Ukraine Biden (false) dealings that Rudy Giuliani has been busily FABRICATING with his Ukrainian counterpart.

Never a shortage of money for GOP dirty tricks.

[greenjar_01]

12. The derecho blew through our Chicago neighborhood in about 35-40 minutes

People a mile south and a mile east *still* have power out, and are not expecting power until Saturday (!). We didn't lose power at all. 7300 Chicago trees went down. For our block, a few branches fell and one dinked a hole through a neighbor's windshield, but that was it. Almost nothing, and it was sunny again in under two hours.

So weird.

[jayschool2013]

13. It's more than the farmers

The state's second-largest city, Cedar Rapids, resembles a war zone. I drove up yesterday from Iowa City and lost count of the semis that had been toppled and lay strewn on the side of the highway or in the median. People were lined up for a 90-minute wait at one of only a couple of operational gas stations serving the town. Most of CR remains without power for the fourth day, and there's little promise that it will be easily restored.

So go ahead and chastise the state for stupidly voting GOP (I moved here in 2017, just in time to help put three Democrats in the U.S. House out of our four Congressional districts), but don't lose sight of the fact that more than farmers are suffering, and this human suffering should draw some sympathy, not just the contempt I'm reading here. Not that it should make a difference, but Cedar Rapids is represented by a Democrat (Abby Finkenauer) in the U.S. House. Iowa City is represented by a Democrat (Dave Loebsack) in the U.S. House. Des Moines is represented by a Democrat (Cindy Axne) in the U.S. House.

Storm evokes trauma of 2008 floods

[NutmegYankee]

14. Some of us have only had power back for a few days back East

Perhaps I missed the coverage while my DSL line was torn from my house, but my state had over 50% out of power after the tropical storm. I saw almost nothing about it on DU.

[jayschool2013]

15. Connecticut?

Guessing from the handle.

[NutmegYankee]

17. Yes.

[NutmegYankee]

19. One hard lesson learned after Irene and Sandy was to have generator backup for all gas stations.

They can't run their fridges/freezers, but at least the pumps can stay online to feed the many generators. We even have big box stores run at reduced capacity now on generator. I know of two walmarts and three grocery stores that had lights and registers going on generator. Sadly, the frozen goods and coolers are usually toast because the power draw for them is too much. The telecom companies even drop generators at the fiber boxes to ensure the DSL/Phone systems stay online. I normally have internet even if out of power for a week, but this time I got screwed when a tree branch took down my phone line. Thankfully my phone company put up a new one just 2 days later.

[Sherman A1]

23. Having worked in the grocery industry

I assure you that the stores have plans to deal with power loss and protecting perishable products. Sometimes they don't work out as well as hoped, but stores lose power and there will be one or more empty refrigerated trailers on the way to hold the goods until power is restored.

[NutmegYankee]

24. I can assure you they don't.

Heard the horror story first hand from my neighbor, a Walmart manager. As we speak several stores have not been able to restock their freezers/fridges. The owner of the local IGA grocery/gas station told me he has to file an insurance claim every time they have an extended outage.

[Sherman A1]

25. Odd

as it was Standard Operating Procedure for the chain for which I worked. Any power outage expected to last more than about an hour and the empty trailers were dispatched. We also had foam to cover open cases and each store had a Emergency Manual to follow. Crews would come in from unaffected stores to assist with the unloading and restocking of the cases.

Failure to have such a plan or series of plans is simply shortsighted bad management.

[NutmegYankee]

26. Wide spread outages affecting 60% of customers.

Add to this that many roads (rural roads) were blocked by trees. Remember New England wants to be a forest, and if any land is left alone it will become forest again quickly. Connecticut has more houses in close proximity to trees than any other state. We don’t have the square road patterns of Midwest states. The New England terrain is very hilly and rocky having once been the base of a mountain range. Roads typically follow the path they first had in the 1650s to 1700s. A blocked road may require 10s of miles in detour, and that also can be blocked. It has happened to me before. Another factor is high winds make it unsafe to move large trucks until they die down. Thunderstorms pass quickly, but hurricanes can last hours.

[Sherman A1]

27. Yes, hurricanes can last for hours

good planning can last even longer.

[NutmegYankee]

28. Considering the number of stores affected

I think your plan would work great in the event of one store going down, but if hundreds go down... You discussed people surging from other stores, but they also had power outages. Employees at home were often trapped by trees or dealing with their own issues at home. In the past I'd take the day off from my Engineering job to maintain the generator and make repairs to fences or the house, and many of these employees are doing the same. After Hurricane Irene in 2011, I had no power for 8 days. We have violent Nor'easters in the winter/spring, but the trees are leafless by then and damage is reduced, so it's not like we aren't used to high wind events. The exception was Oct 2011, where a snowstorm before the leaves had dropped left some without power for two weeks.

You may attack the grocery industry here as much as you like, but I think you are not factoring in the scale of damage. At least we manage to always have gasoline without lines of cars. Even in Irene and Sandy, rural Connecticut had generator backup at all gas stations while NY/NJ were out of gas for days.

[Sherman A1]

29. I worked in the Grocery industry for 43 years

and I am not attacking it. I am questioning what appears to be very poor planning on the part of the operators in the area. Yes, the regional terrain is different than that from the area in which I am in, but planning ahead is part of business and terrain can be accounted for in that planning. If the terrain does not allow for rapid redeployment of resources, then the facilities need to be more geared towards self sustaining. Grocery stores are essential infrastructure to supply the populace as we have seen in this pandemic (something that grocery workers knew all along) that management/ownership fails to fulfill the needs of their communities is pretty sad.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

22. Thanks for the link. Lots of disturbing photos of damage to homes, farms and businesses.

And yes, we need to show sympathy and compassion toward everyone suffering damage or injury from this horrible storm.

It feels good in these trying times to see lots of neighbors out helping those in need to remove storm debris, patch roofs, etc.


KY..........