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"

Having *never* seen a storm or twisting winds (never have them in
southern India), a rush of air rustling furiously through the hair
always seems like something I want to really see and be in, and enjoy.
The very idea of a tornado or hurricane titillates me, yet I must
confess your prose makes me think again :\

Glad you came away unscathed, mate.

Ramapriya


Jay Honeck wrote:
So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado

("Jay Honeck" wrote)
This is almost unbelievable, as just a few blocks away are scenes of utter
devastation. Menards is a shambles, and much of their buildingmaterials
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.


VERY GLAD you and yours didn't get ...HIT!

Our scare was last year, hiding out with the cars in/under a local (cement)
Park and Ride ramp. Our townhouse garage was full of crap and we wanted to
hide the two cars from the anticipated hail. We had just pulled into the two
story parking structure, hiding behind a ramp, when it hit. Tornado went
north of us by about a half mile.

Tornado? WTF? We were listening to the radio....

Destruction (on the light side - roofs, trees, sheds, signs, campers, more
trees, etc) along its narrow two mile path, not much damage elswere in the
neighborhood. It lifted just north of ANE. We had branches down, that was
it.

Yours, tonight, sounds like a bad one. CNN has nothing on it yet.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to all in the Iowa City area this evening.


Montblack
If you've never been around an evening tornado - the following day all you
hear is 14 hours of chain saws running.

Geez!!!!

I got within a mile of a tornado once, out in open range and that was once
too often!

Hope all works out!

--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO
"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
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"

You're an amazing story teller, Jay.

Out here in Kah-lee-for-nyuh we don't get much in the way of
twisters. I mean, they do happen, but they're not much more
than oversized whirlwinds. Some trees down and that's about it.

However, I've had two closish calls with them just the same.

About 12 years ago one of these "super-whirlwinds" had gone by
two blocks from where I lived. Yeah, bad strom blew through, but
didn't notice any 'twister' till it was on the news.

The other time was at work. I was back in the warehouse staring
out the door watching the weather. Suddenly the wind picked up.
Then stuff started swirling around in the parking lot. I stepped
outside and looked up. The clouds were swirling like mad. I
thought it might be a funnel cloud but wasn't sure having never
seen one in real life. Wlp, that evening on the news there was
a report of a small twister hitting some neighborhood directly
down path from where I was. Turned out I was right.

You know, I thought to myself the other day after seeing some
of the tornado damage in the Midwest, that I think I'd rather
deal with the earthquakes here than a bunch of supercells out
there.

Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
Quake "predictions": http://www.skywise711.com/quakes/EQDB/index.html
Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
sirens went off.

SNIP

Jay (Central),

As a former Michigander, I sure remember those occasions when the sky would
turn that unique / bizarre blackish-green and how we'd suddenly feel the
need to go downstairs and shoot pool when it got "too quiet" outside.

Glad to hear that you, Mary and the kids are ok and I'm glad Mother Nature
spared the Hotel.

I hope the airport is ok too...?

Jay (West)

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
snip

Post photos...

Glad to hear things are fine, at least for you. I guess it's going to be
some interesting times in the near future, watching and helping with the
cleanup and rebuilding. You weren't kidding about having a foot on a banana
peel.

By the way, Mr. English Major:

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
[...]
It took my son and I...

What's up with that?



I hope you're wrong about the casualties. Guess we'll find out soon enough
about that.

Pete

Wow - great story! You convey the feeling very well.
Saw one of those in Minneapolis back in the early '80's. Right in the city.
As you say, the wind stopped - then it poured such a heavy rain - I've never
seen rain like that. The funnel went through several miles from where I was. I
remember an MTC bus ended up in an auto parts store - Inside the display
window - almost looked like they were selling it.

I'm amazed you're having 85 degree evenings in Iowa City in mid April.
Is this typical?

Jay Honeck wrote:

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.

Glad to hear you are OK, Jay.