When your 91-year-old mother says a storm is coming and it’s coming fast, you better listen, says David Martin of DCM Hampshires and Durocs in Marion, Iowa.
That morning David woke up to a humidity like he’s never experienced in his life. Hours later, a derecho windstorm struck Linn County, Iowa. For 40 minutes, winds raged and snapped over 100 mature evergreen and pine trees between their two farms located five miles apart. It even ripped down new high-line poles that were built to withstand 140-mph winds. Their pigs, housed in open-front buildings, walked around like a bunch of stunned zombies for hours after the storm passed.
“It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” he says. “I was in the basement. I heard the trees hit the roof of the house and one went through the roof. The rest of the trees were falling like crazy, but I never heard them because the winds were so loud.”
Two trees fell on their house during the storm and one tree broke a hole through their roof.
Loss and More Loss
Most of David’s friends lost something in the storm, he says. There’s hardly a grain bin standing anywhere between their place and the state’s capital 120 miles away. Buildings down, animals without homes, houses destroyed.
“There’s no grain storage around here. Most of the corn is so flat that it’s unharvestable. And it’s not going to come up because it broke off. Such huge losses – bin after bin, building after building – a tornado would have been easier for a lot of people,” David says.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received the brunt of the damage, explains Carly Martin, David’s daughter. It’s the second most populous city after Des Moines. For the derecho winds to peak at a place with this many people just makes it even more devastating for the state of Iowa.
Harvester silos bent to a 90-degree angle, flat fields and obliterated buildings remain a haunting reminder of the storm no one saw coming.
“It could have been so much worse,” he says. “We were on the edge of it. We lost lots of trees, but our pine trees saved our buildings. It absolutely chewed the trees apart, but I believe that’s what saved our pigs.”
Unfortunately, their corn and soybean crop didn’t fare as well. In July, they had a horrible storm with wind and hail that hit their place.
Damage from the July hail and wind storm that hit the Martin’s farm.
“We weren’t even done cleaning up from that,” Carly adds.
Most of the corn hit by the derecho winds are down in one direction, David explains. But his corn that was damaged by hail is down in every direction.
“Honestly, I think this is going to get into the farmers’ heads. We don’t know how to harvest this stuff,” David says. “You’re sitting there trying to figure out how to get a crop out that is just impossible to harvest and I think it’s really going to affect a lot of people.”
As a farmer, David’s favorite thing to do is run a combine down nice straight rows. That isn’t going to happen this year. But even if you could combine this mess of corn, David says there is nowhere to take it.
“All the bins are destroyed around here. There’s no way anybody can get new facilities up in time. And I don’t imagine too many of the grain companies have been spending a lot of time making bins this summer with the price of grain,” he adds.
Damaged fields after the derecho winds.
As a livestock producer the quality of this corn crop is a major concern.
“The grain will have so many toxins,” he says. “We already have corn that snapped and if you try to go harvest your good stuff, that bad stuff is going to go in there with it. It’s going to be a year that nobody’s ever seen before.”
For the farmers in one of the top agriculture states in the U.S. to get hit so hard, it’s going to trickle out and impact everyone, Carly says.
“People are already struggling from the pandemic and then you put this on top of it, it’s going to affect everyone in so many different ways,” she adds.
The clean-up is going to take a very long time. You don’t realize how many trees you have until they are all laying flat, Carly says.
The Luxury of Power
Power is a luxury right now in the area.
“It looks like a warzone around here,” David says. “To put it into perspective, within our county alone, workers have replaced 3,000 poles and more than 1,000 miles of wire in addition to clearing tons of debris from power lines.”
Ten days after the storm hit, local news stations report 22,000 tons of derecho debris has been removed so far in Cedar Rapids alone.
One crew leader fixing power lines told David that this is the worst devastation he has seen since the Joplin, Mo., tornado.
“You’ve got to drag the power lines out of the cornfields first,” David says. “They’re all tangled up and the workers are struggling to get the supplies they need. There’s already a shortage of lumber and everything else.”
No power, hot summer temperatures and devastation are fueling disgruntled people right and left.
“I know sometimes people get frustrated with power companies after storms like this,” Carly says. “They don’t deserve that. They’re doing the best they can.”
Carly and her mom, Beth, wanted to be “Iowa nice” so they decided to get some snacks for the linemen.
“We knew they had come from out of state and likely didn’t get much sleep,” Carly says. “We brought them some apples, granola bars and cookies. Their faces just lit up over it. That night, we decided to grill them pork burgers to show them our gratitude.”
The Martins extended their appreciation for the linemen with a pork burger meal and snacks.
Hog Farmers Stick Together
Despite the devastation their family has experienced, David says he knows he is not alone in it. Within hours, fellow farmers reached out trying to help. His long-time friend in the pork industry, Doug Stewart, and Doug’s son-in-law, drove over from Waverly, Iowa, the next day to help move pigs to their other farm where they had water.
Stewart also met up with a boar stud to pick up boar semen and then drove it to the Martin’s.
“Breeding sows was the last thing on my mind,” David says.
Click here to read Page 2; discover the story of one of the trees still standing at the farm today and watch a video of the storm damage.
