Hey
@Martin Pauly how's things in Cedar Rapids? Any damage at CID?
Yes, thanks, we are OK. We got electricity and internet back. We have a generator which I bought 12 years ago - fortunately it still worked! No big trees in our relatively young neighborhood, which is probably what saved us. A lot of Cedar Rapids is - well, was - full of tall trees, and the number of power lines and houses damaged by trees is like nothing we have ever seen before.
The main airport (KCID) faired quite well. Marion (C17) not so much - I feel bad for them; they had just reopened their runway a couple of weeks ago after a year or so of reconstruction. Now they are down again.
At CID, there was only slight damage to the roof of a couple of T hangars - as far I as know, no aircraft were damaged. Power is still out at the airport as I am writing this three days later. The FBO and the terminal are running on generators, but the gates and hangar doors don't work.
As I wrote on BeechTalk, it's not the severity of the damage to any one place or dwelling, but the fact that it happened to half a million people all at once which makes this so devastating. Many people will be without power for days (or weeks in some cases) to come.
We are all surprised by how little news coverage there is of this event and the aftermath. 112 mph wind makes this equivalent to a category 3 hurricane - in the Midwest!!! Or the very top-end of the range of an F1 tornado - only this "tornado" was 20+ miles wide. The amount of destruction is hard to imagine, and yet...
- Martin