Apr 6, 2010
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| From 04/06/10 Grinnell |
Waking up in St. Joseph in a NASTY Days Inn, not the worst MOTEL I had ever been in, but a new low for a named chain we went and grabbed some lunch.
I think all spirits were low this morning Ben Holcomb, Adam Lucio, L.B. Laforce and L.B.’s Dad (Bill) all stayed the night.
Looking over the forecast we need to be closer to Des Monies… this being the case I could have gone home and worked a 1/2 day to save some PTO and money so it’s making me sick. In addition the folks at the SPC have dropped the outlook from what was a 10% before we went to bed.
We ran over to a place called the Rib Crib for some lunch, GREAT PLACE to eat and would easily meet my $10 lunch rule with tip! Tuesdays were all you can eat ribs for $9.99 so check them out!
We headed north up to Osceola, IA where we met the convergence and chilled for a while then headed to setup in South-South East IA, by about this time things were starting to go nuts up north of 80 but luckily we waited it out. While everyone was playing in the storms dying out in N IA we had everything down south to ourselves.
The storm we ended up following was eventually what caused all the damage in Grinnell, IA strangely we had no clue until AFTER it happened. Ben, Danny and Adam had pulled away from us earlier in the day, Joe Rusiwitz had met us somewhere (I can’t remember) and we ended up on 80 watching what was finally a rotating wall cloud. After it passed we decided to eat at a Mexican place in Grinnell I knew of and took off that way. We met the Danny, Adam and Ben at the rest area with $$$ in their eyes over the wreck video so we continued our trek to Grinnell. Turns out the town got hit HARD with straight line winds, power was out everywhere however people were moving around. There was no sense of urgency, no emergency vehicles moving around, much more like you got hit and the gut and trying to forget the pain. I got a tip of a destroyed house where a tree had fallen on it so I went to shoot a package. When we got to the house it was vacant and for rent, so nobody was in it. The tree was rotted inside so no doubt it fell over, the house was just as crappy so I hate to say “No Loss” but more like some landlord in a college town needs to file some insurance, sure you get my drift there.
Unfortunately no Mexican food for me. I edited my package, uploaded it and headed for Newton, IA where I met Randy Cooper for dinner.
Not a bad chase, but would have rather seen some storms than just the aftermath… I hate that.
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| From 04/06/10 Grinnell |