Severe weather in Iowa

While we don't have it as bad as other areas of the country have had it this past year, Iowa did have a powerful system that moved through early Monday morning. The most powerful storms hit just north of Des Moines early Monday morning and continued to strengthen as they moved east. The most significant damage was reported in Story, Marshall, Tama and Benton counties with wind gusts topping 70 to 80 mph.

Monday morning, more than 3,100 people were reported without power by MidAmerican Energy. The outages were focused in Polk City, Polk County, Carlisle, Elkhardt and parts of the city of Des Moines. The outages were cut down to around 100 customers by early afternoon. Many towns are still without power today. In Marshalltown, only one gas station remained open yesterday afternoon with approximately an hour and a half wait to fuel up.

Heavy rain accompanied some storms. For example, the National Weather Service said Spencer reported nearly 1.90 inches in 24 hours.

WHO-TV's weather radar tower was also destroyed during the storm, with parts thrown into a nearby home's yard near the town of Alleman, north of the Des Moines metro. KCCI's weather radar and other TV station transmitting towers near Alleman were not damaged. A 180-foot radio tower in Toledo was also snapped in the storm.

I urge you to head over and help with the storm's aftermath clean-up if you live in any of these areas. Much of the damage isn't extensive, but it's still going to take time to clean-up and restore.