Gazette Daily News Podcast, August 18
This is Stephen Colbert from the Gazette Digital News Desk and I’m here with your update for Tuesday, August 18, 2020.
Today will be Sunny, with a high near 81 and it should cool off to around 57 tonight. Expect more of the same tomorrow
90% of Alliant customers to have power by end of the day today. Last night, over 42,000 residents in Linn and Johnson counties were still without power. During Kim Reynolds’ news conference yesterday, Terry Kouba, senior vice president of utility operations at Alliant said, the company is doing everything possible to restore service to 90 percent of its customers by the end of the day Tuesday. Kouba said Alliant is replacing 2,500 downed poles from the storm — a job typically done in eight months for the company — in a matter of weeks.
Mediacom customers can expect to have internet service within a day — if not faster than that — after electricity comes back, but ImOn has significant damage to its infrastructure, and they say an estimate for individual customers is “impossible.”
Donald Trump signs Iowa derecho disaster declaration. The declaration comes as a response to a request made for at least $4 billion in federal aid to deal with property and crop damage caused by last week’s derecho. Under the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Individual Assistance Program, the president said he approved assistance for 27 Iowa counties. Individual Assistance Program funding provides disaster-impacted homeowners and businesses with programs and services to maximize recovery, including assistance with housing, personal property replacement, medical expenses and legal services.
Following his disaster declaration, Trump will visit Cedar Rapids today. Trump will meet with Gov. Reynolds to discuss efforts for responding to the derecho and he will also meet with state and local officials, along with Iowans affected by the storm. Full details of the visit have not been disclosed.
It may go without saying, but expect a lot of mulch in Cedar Rapids over the coming months. Disposing of the tree debris that has buried much of Cedar Rapids since last week’s destructive derecho storm likely will take “until winter,” according to a city official, and much of it will be made into mulch. The city opened a public collection site at F Avenue and First Street NW, and the massive pile of branches, sticks and leaves at the site was the size of two Olympic-sized pools by Sunday morning. The site is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m, and thanks to a steady stream of pickups and trailers over 1,000 loads were already dropped off over the weekend. Residents can bring tree debris there, but not household garbage, such as shingles and siding.
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