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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Iowa derecho report echoes local concerns about communication, proper ways to seek aid
Iowa Homeland Security report comes 15 months after derecho
The hardest nut to crack after the 2020 derecho that caused an estimated $7.5 billion damage in Iowa is how emergency management officials can communicate with each other to help the public when phone and internet services go down.
A 27-page post-derecho review released this week by the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management says the breakdown in communication among local and state officials during and after the Aug. 10, 2020, storm had consequences, such as full debris trucks showing up at closed landfills and aid agencies ordering meals that weren’t expected.
The agency also noted a need to train local officials about the right way to request state resources in an emergency.
“Resource requests were made to the SEOC (State Emergency Operations Center) and straight to the governor from personnel outside of the county EMA offices,” the report states. “Concerns that political pressures caused the standardized resource request process to be circumvented at the local level made it difficult to manage resources.”
Marion officials on Aug. 12, 2020, asked state Sen. Liz Mathis, D-Hiawatha, to push for the Iowa National Guard to be deployed to Linn County, Mathis said at the time. Mathis called the governor's office, which announced Aug. 13, 2020, the Guard would be sent to Linn County.
The state report comes 15 months after the derecho swept through Iowa with hurricane-fore winds, flattening crops, crumpling grain bins, uprooting trees and cutting power in a belt across the central part of the state. Some of the worst damage was in Linn County.
Iowa Homeland Security paid Atchison Consulting, of Cottontown, Tenn., $51,150 to complete the review, which describes areas of strength and areas where the state needs improvement before the next disaster. Several points match up with findings identified earlier in Linn County’s after-action review and a similar report by the city of Cedar Rapids.
Among the Homeland Security findings:
- The state needs backup communication when phone and internet services are out. But the report doesn’t say what this should be. Some agencies in other states have used ham radio or pagers, former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Craig Fugate told The Gazette in 2020.
- Some local emergency management agencies did not use the state’s incident management software, saying it was too cumbersome. Homeland Security will explore improving it.
- The state should develop contingency plans for situations in which nonprofit partners are not able to fill a need. The report notes challenges communicating with the Red Cross, tasked with providing shelters. The Red Cross has said it will plan to provide more congregate shelters early in disaster response and then move people into hotel rooms.
- While restaurants and citizens donated a lot of food after the derecho, the state needs a formalized process to ensure food safety and to reduce waste.
- Services for refugees or immigrant families need to be improved. Some refugees in Cedar Rapids were in a makeshift encampment outside their derecho-damaged apartment complex for up to a week.
- The state needs updated contact lists. After the derecho, information for external partners, such as the Civil Air Patrol, was outdated and resulted in delayed communication.
- Iowa’s debris management contract wasn’t always clear for jurisdictions around the state. Homeland Security wants to develop a debris management checklist.
Homeland Security still is setting timelines for making changes recommended in the report, Spokeswoman Lucinda Parker said in an email Wednesday.
“The strictly HSEMD issues should be able to be addressed in relatively short order while the others involving other partners will take more time due to the need for additional coordination,” she said.
Iowa Homeland Security 2020 Derecho Review by Gazetteonline on Scribd
Comments: (319) 339-3157; erin.jordan@thegazette.com
In a Sept. 26, 2020, photo, workers with the Iowa Department of Transportation haul away tree limbs cut down after the derecho in the small Tama County community of Vining. Residents there lugged tree debris to a big pile in town, which the Iowa DOT then transferred to a landfill. A state report this week found that communication lapses after the derecho meant that sometimes trucks showed up with storm debris at landfills that were closed. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
Sgt. Chris Peterson of Dyersville, with the Alpha Co., 224th Brigade Engineer Battalion of the Iowa National Guard, uses a chain saw Aug. 15, 2020, to cut limbs off a downed tree as cleanup after the derecho continued in southeast Cedar Rapids. Engineers with the unit were assisting utility companies with debris removal so line work could progress. A state report issued this weeks recommends that local officials be better educated on the protocols for requesting state emergency resources like the Guard. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
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