A group of storms that tore through the Midwest this week has left homes destroyed, crops demolished and over a quarter of a million people still without power days later. “Is it Thursday?” Clarissa Huilman, 34, who lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, said in a phone call. “We still don’t have power back,” she added as she watched workers trying to remove a 75-foot tree that had crashed onto her one-story home, puncturing its roof and intruding into the living room and dining room. The storms wreaked havoc beyond knocking out power to the region: Traffic on Interstate 380 in Cedar Rapids was halted when semitrailer trucks were overturned on the northbound and southbound lanes. One neighborhood posted a makeshift “dead end” sign as residential roads were blocked and homes were smothered by fallen trees.

Source: New York Times August 13, 2020 22:05 UTC