CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – Until one afternoon last August, Cedar Rapids had always been a lush, leafy island surrounded by a sea of corn and soybeans, with its giant oaks, sycamores and other trees towering over the community’s neighborhoods and providing a shady refuge from Iowa’s steamy summer heat.
It took 45 minutes to shred nearly all of those trees, as a rare storm called a derecho plowed through the city of 130,000 in eastern Iowa with 140 mph (225 kph) winds and left behind a jumble of branches, downed powerlines and twisted signs.
Power was restored in the following weeks, and workers continue repairing thousands of homes battered by the hurricane-force winds, but nine months later Cedar Rapids is not back to normal — because of the