On Aug. 23, 37-year-old Jered Lorenz was thrown from his two-door Grand Prix by harsh winds in Lewiston, Minnesota. His car was found upside-down next to Rush Creek with the front bumper torn off and the license plate ruined. According to Fox News, Lorenz was discovered by the Winona County Dive Rescue Team four miles away from his car, tangled in a tree.
Russ Marsolek, the team leader, said to the West Central Tribune (Minn.), “It appeared the car was driving on a gravel road when it crossed a bridge over the creek and was swept away.”
All of last week, the Midwest was struck with violent storms. Roads were flooded, schools were cancelled, and people were picked up by rescue boats to escape their flooded homes.
“A preliminary survey by the American Red Cross in Minnesota identified about 4, 200 affected homes,” said Kris Eide, Minnesota’s director of homeland security, to MSNBC.
The floods resulted from two different storms: one in the upper Midwest, and the other being the remains of Tropical Storm Erin.
Fox News reported that winds in Des Moines, Iowa destroyed buildings, cut off power, and left roads and homes submerged. In Mansfield, Ohio, the U.S. Postal Service halted mail delivery. Thirty postal vehicles were trapped underwater, but no mail was destroyed.
According to CNN News, the lethal combination of the two storms resulted in millions of dollars in damages, and 22 deaths.
Despite seemingly constant flooding from violent storms in the Midwest since May, there hasn’t been much discussion about these events on a national level.
“Kansas has been flooding all summer,” said Senior Courtney Hutchison of Lawrence, Kansas. “It was substantial. People had to move out of their homes.”
According to the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), the storms in May destroyed houses and damaged farms in southwest Kansas.
Twenty-five-year-old A.J. Bryce of St. Louis, Missouri, had experienced one of the worst storms in Missouri’s history in July 2006 that wiped out St. Louis’ power for three days.
“The mayor of St. Louis called it a national emergency,” said Bryce in an interview. “It was called an inland hurricane, and the wind was 70 mph. It was creepy because we didn’t live close to the ocean.”
As huge as the storm in St. Louis was, it barely reached ears on the east or west coasts.
“It’s crazy that no one has heard of it,” said Bryce. “St. Louis is a big city, but it’s caught in association with the Midwest and people don’t care.