Derecho Clean Up in Iowa

Dear Blue Diamond Attachments,

Thank you for sending this unit for us to use within our community.

On Aug 10th 2020, the National Weather Service logged more than 700 reports of severe weather, including a wind gust to 112 mph in Midway, Iowa. They are calling it a “Derecho”. The core of the most severe wind was at times 30 to 50 miles wide, with the swath of gusts locally exceeding 90 mph and lasting longer than 15 minutes in duration. The secret of derechos is their proclivity for tapping into jet-stream energy. They form along the boundary of warm air to the south and cooler air to the north, feeding off the instability that results from the temperature contrast. Then warm, sinking air on the back side of the storms dries up and helps drag down strong jet stream momentum. There have been three confirmed deaths related to the storm in Iowa. One other person was killed in Indiana. As of midday Friday, some 140,000 customers remained without power in Iowa, according to poweroutage.us<https://poweroutage.us/>. Another 60,000 were without power in Illinois.

Here at Mid Country Machinery, we were overwhelmed with people calling for clean up equipment, generators and attachments for equipment. I reached out to Joel Carmichael, a representative of Blue Diamond Attachments. I was able to put my order in for attachments we needed to help Iowa’s clean up. They had what I needed in stock and shipped out that week. That same week when my order was delivered, I received an email from Blue Diamond about a FREE skid loader with grapple bucket attachment that was dispatched to our store in Des Moines. I had no idea that there was such a program out there. Thanks to Blue Diamond Attachments, we were able to put this unit to work out in the Des Moines Metro community. One of our own employees was devastated by the storm. One of his trees fell onto his house and cut power to his house. He was able to unitize the skid loader to help with the clean up.

Thank you for being there for us!

Tim Kramer

MID COUNTRY MACHINERY