CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa _ Anna Scharf was heading home for lunch when the storm rolled in.
She'd been visiting a grocery store, a client of her food supply business. As she headed out the door, she saw a tree snap across the street, bringing down a power line on a house that burst into flames.
Scharf decided to skip lunch. She hustled to a walk-in cooler and huddled there with store employees for the next 90 minutes as the worst natural disaster in the history of Iowa's second-largest city raged outside.
A derecho, a rare straight-line windstorm that's often described as an "inland hurricane," tore through the middle of the state on Aug. 10, leaving $4 billion in damage across 27 Iowa counties. More than 10 million acres of cropland was damaged, according to emergency management officials.
On Tuesday, more than a week after the storm, some 40,000 Iowa homes and businesses were still without power, as residents and work crews try to restore electricity, repair damage and clear away downed trees. Estimates are that Cedar Rapids, a metropolitan area of about 130,000 people, lost half of its tree canopy.
In the hours after the storm hit, "we were trying to figure out what whacked us," said Steve O'Konek, Linn County emergency management coordinator. "I was not familiar with the term 'derecho,' but I sure am now."
Residents fought their way home from work through streets clogged with downed trees, often to find their property in a shambles. More than 1,000 homes in Cedar Rapids were completely destroyed by the storm, with another 4,000 severely damaged, O'Konek said. The storm swept through Cedar Rapids for 40 to 50 minutes, he said, with sustained winds of 80 to 90 mph and gusts of up to 112 mph.
Scharf's home had a tree through the living room window and another through the roof. Her husband, with help from neighbors, got the trees cut away and covered the roof with blue tarps. Scharf, who is nearly seven months pregnant with her first child, has continued to live in her home, but without power.
"We are playing it by ear," she said, as friends have brought her meals.
