Devastation in Iowa City Tonight

So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
sirens went off. We had noticed the skies becoming black, but were all
too wrapped up in talk of paving taxiways to pay much heed.

The meeting abruptly adjourned with the sirens, and everyone tried to
find the long-rumored basement in the terminal building. The second
floor conference room, with its two-story windows overlooking the ramp
(and facing West), just didn't seem like a good place to be, and we all
ended up down in the boiler room.

After a while we felt silly, and went up to the weather room, where we
watched the storm developing on radar. When it looked like the worst
was past, I called Mary and made a mad dash for the convertible (thank
goodness I had put the top up!) through moderate rain. Strangely, she
said that if I didn't leave right away, to wait 15 minutes, because the
worst was yet to come -- which didn't fit my radar picture at all.

Well, apparently the TV station's "Live Doppler Radar" is a better
information source than the airport version. Heading toward home, the
hail began. Within seconds it sounded like machine-gun fire, and I
quickly drove underneath a gas station's canopy with a few other
hapless motorists. For the next ten minutes, we watched as
ping-pong-ball-sized hail bombarded Iowa City. The flags were straight
out, the wind was howling, and the temperature was almost hot. It was
very weird, and I flipped on a local AM radio station that was
interviewing a guy maybe a mile away from me, talking to them on his
cell phone.

Suddenly, the flag in front of me dropped straight down. The hail
continued for a minute, but the wind absolutely died. Then it was just
rain -- and then it stopped, too. I was wondering what the hell was
going on, when the guy on the radio suddenly said "Oh my God, there's a
funnel cloud!" The announcer asked him where he was, and he said "On
Benton Street!"

I was on Muscatine Dr., maybe 3/4 of a mile away, facing away from it.

My concern for hail damage instantly gone, I called Mary, who was down
the basement of our home with our kids. I told her I was inbound, and
to raise the garage door. I didn't want the power to go out and to be
stuck outside with a tornado approaching. Racing toward home, flying
down a tree-lined street that offered a limited view to the south, I
glanced in the direction of the reported tornado when, in a flash of
lighning I saw it.

There was no way to judge scale or direction of travel, in that
millisecond flash, but it was big. A giant, V-shaped funnel was
looming over the city, and it couldn't have been six blocks away! In
fact, for me to have been able to see it at all, over those trees, it
was either 50 stories tall, or it was right on top of me!

Suddenly endowed with the driving prowess of Mario Andretti, I punched
the pedal to the floor. I glanced down and saw 70 mph in second gear,
and told Mary to get back downstairs.

Not wanting to look back, I slid to the last stop sign before my house.
Incredibly, with the tornado sirens wailing, hail flying, constant
lightning and high winds, and a funnel cloud bringing up the rear, an
older woman was dutifully driving 25 mph up our road. I suspect all
she saw of me was a candy-apple-red streak...

At last down the basement, with a beer and the kids, we watched the
Cedar Rapids newscasters going absolutely ballistic over the "severe
weather" in nearby Iowa City. Only difference was, this time it was
for real. Reports were soon coming in of damage on Riverside Drive --
the road our hotel is on -- and of injuries inside the Menards nearby.
(This the Menards I've visited nearly every day since we opened.)

When they announced that all off-duty police and firemen were to report
for duty, and that the Army National Guard were being called out, I
knew we were seeing the real deal. I called my night manager, and got
no answer. I then tried his cell phone, but he was busy holding the
door to the airport building, which was at that moment trying to be
sucked off its hinges. I told him to call me back after he got to
safety.

A few minutes later, he called. The storm was past, and he was out
assessing damage, but the power was out, and everything was inky black.
Best he could tell, the only damage was to the fence around our pool,
which was down, a roof vent was gone, and a bunch of shingles were off.
I told him I'd be right down.

That was two hours ago. I took the highway south of town, and was able
to get to the hotel fairly quickly, despite the stoplights being out.
The hotel grounds are a shambles, with branches, shingles, leaves, and
debris of all kinds literally everywhere, but it appears that we got
off easy. Although we received wind damage to the roof, and the fence
is toast, all of our trees survived, and no windows were blown out.

This is almost unbelievable, as just a few blocks away are scenes of
utter devastation. Menards is a shambles, and much of their building
materials are scattered around town. Our airport commission
president's Dodge dealership is gone. His cars are smashed flat, and
his showroom is splinters, with the roof laying across part of
Riverside Drive. We were at the meeting, huddled in the boiler room
together, and now his business is gone.

Down the road from us, our favorite Dairy Queen is simply gone. One of
the signs is still there, but the store itself is just no longer there.
And, being an 85 degree evening, there had to have been a bunch of
employees in there when the storm hit.

It's possible to draw a line from Menard's to the Dodge dealership,
right through the Dairy Queen, and into downtown proper. It missed our
hotel by a few hundred yards, at most.

Downtown is a weird scene of utter pandemonium, combined with the
ambience of an all-night kegger. All the college kids -- 35,000 of
them -- are out partying, surveying the changed streetscape. The roof
of a gas station was lifted up, moved about six feet toward the street,
and then dropped back down, destroying everything inside. Cars are
upside down, and one was evidently sucked off the top of a six-story
parking ramp, and dropped into the street.

It took my son and I an hour to drive the mile from the hotel to the
eastern edge of downtown. Dozens of alarms are wailing, set off when
hundreds (thousands?) of windows blew out. Rubble and debris are
everywhere, with stop lights twisted around light poles, and dumpsters
tossed into the road like tumbleweeds. Fire trucks, ambulances,
police cars, front end loaders, and National Guard vehicles struggled
to get through the devastation and traffic -- and all the while boom
boxes were playing and the college kids were out taking pictures and
video. Some idiots launched a few bottle rockets, and got the police
riled up. Destroyed gas stations are cordoned off, in case of leaks,
and they sure didn't need any fireworks setting off a conflagration.

Eventually we made it out of the area, and were able to get home. Our
garbage -- with six bags of leaves -- is sitting out front, absolutely
unmoved. Not a blade of grass is out of place.

Nature is amazing, and we were so very lucky. Our hangar and plane are
unscathed, the hotel was just nicked a glancing blow, and our home is
fine. There's no word on casualties yet, but from the looks of things,
there almost had to be some.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"