Aug. 10, 2020—a day that will loom large in the memory of Cedar Rapidians.
This
week, on Wednesday, I zoomed into a session sponsored by The Gazette,
our daily paper. Their four-person photojournalism staff shared many
images that they made and discussed memories of the devastating storm.
A
tornado can be bad. A big, powerful one may stay on the ground for a
hundred miles, leaving a sometimes mile-wide swath of destruction. But
such monster twisters are rare even here in Iowa where we are used to
tornado safety drills and listen for those warning sirens when the
summer skies darken.
But the derecho was a whole level of crazy
beyond that. We were expecting a storm Aug. 10, but nobody expected an
unusual bow of destruction, a bent wall of straight-line winds that
would sweep across much of the state, flattening crops, ripping off
roofs and uprooting trees as it blew and blew.
 |
| Aug.
10, after the storm, C Avenue traffic slows to a crawl as street is
blocked by power lines. (Not a Gazette image, see theirs on their video above,
all images in this post are mine). |
Hurricane-force
winds devastated wide areas of the state. Cedar Rapids, its immediately
connected communities such as Marion, Hiawatha and Robins, and the
small towns in the county surrounding us were hit with a storm that
started as a thunderstorm but quickly escalated and seemed like it would
never stop. “Derecho” means both “right” and “straight on” in Spanish,
and the Spanish word labels a straight-on storm whose violence is hard
to image if you have not lived through one.
And in many ways the
derecho hasn’t ended. Many homes were damaged—apartments and houses—and
the impact of derecho devastation still reverberates in town. One result
is that this city, which just last summer featured a beautiful canopy
of mature trees, will take a generation to recover its shade. Me and my
family were lucky—even though our houses were damaged, and we just
signed a contract this week for one derecho-recovery project with more
to come.
Last August! I remember the sense of survival instinct
in those dark powerless days following the storm. Much food was spoiled,
gasoline was not to be had in town, and we had to get creative. But we
were among the fortunate one—our problems were manageable and our house
inhabitable even if not fully intact.
In Cedar Rapids, we are
blessed to have a local newspaper owned by a local company. In many
places, photojournalists are an endangered species. We have four
talented photographers who freeze historic moments in time, and The
Gazette published a book based on their images.
At the session,
moderator Mary Sharp noted that Gazette photographers made more than
10,000 images of the storm and its aftermath, and used 1,000 by printing
them or sharing them online.
Then, 195 of them were used to publish a book about that storm. The Gazette is donating a part of the proceeds to replanting trees.
 |
| Aug.
11, campus of Mount Mercy University. There was a much beloved grove of
huge pines that were in the lawn by Warde Hall. Past tense, they are
gone with the wind now. Here, one lies on the building the day after the
storm. The campus suffered millions of dollars in damage. |
Each
photographer took turns describing the story behind the images shown
Wednesday. Andy Abeyta shot both the image that become the book cover—it
was chosen partly because the image had room for the cover text—and the
more famous front-page image of passersby aiding a truck driver caught
in an overturned truck.
As Abeyta described it, he was in Iowa
City that day to make images of a protest there. He was returning to
Cedar Rapids when the once in a century (knock on wood) storm blew
through. He saw a truck that had just overturned, parked and ran back to
see if he could help—but three other people were already there to aid
the driver, so Abeyta took out his cell phone and shot some images.
It
is an interesting note that a media photographer with fine digital SLR
cameras ended up capturing this key moment with his phone. But I think
angle, timing and an eye that can quickly see the possible images—I
always tell my students that journalism requires imagination, and I do
not mean making stuff up but rather recognizing possibilities in
gathering information or making images—are a photojournalist’s most
important tools.
It’s not the camera, it’s the photographer.
Nothing substitutes for recognizing you’re in the right place at a key
moment and using whatever tool you have.
All of the
photographers—Liz Martin, the Gazette’s head photographer; Jim
Slosiarek, who has recorded the first draft of Cedar Rapids history for
many years; Rebecca Miller; and Abeyta told interesting stories of many
images.
One lesson driven home again and again is the importance
of journalists to get out and about—to report by being there. Again,
it’s a key point I try to make with my students, with mixed results.
Don’t email all your sources or consult Google to retread
information—the best journalism is what you find in the world, and you
have to be out there to encounter it. That’s always true of
photographers, but is a lesson for the rest of the tribe, too.
And,
as Martin noted, news photographers are always looking for “the human
impact.” Another journalism 101—don’t just show “the thing.” Show what
the thing means to people—and that is very true of photography. I often
make images of nature—because I’m a journalism professor, not a
journalist—but I have a pretty good reputation as an event image maker
at MMU, and I always think what I try to do is capture what something
means by capturing the emotions of the people.
Things can be
important too, and Martin made the point while showing an image without a
person in it, so not every news pictures requires a person in it—but
people are usually key.
 |
| Later
in August, power is finally back on. Butterflies, birds, deer--wildlife
had been scarce since the storm, but critters are starting to reappear.
Here, an angry squirrel on the felled giant ash tree in front of my
house seems to hold me accountable for the disruptions to its life. |
One
question posed was whether the news photographers were invading
people’s privacy at vulnerable moments. They all described asking for
consent—and for tying to make images in a respectful way that does not
interfere with the moment.
And that gets to anther point. People
who suffer through an experience like the derecho can be vulnerable—but
what they least want is to be ignored. Journalists—photojournalists like
this panel of four but also writers, videographers, radio reporters, TV
reporters, web site journalists—are there to prevent that, to tell the
stories that otherwise might be ignored.
It was a bit emotional
watching the images float by. Photography has power because it does
freeze an instant in time, and the best images capture the emotion of
that instant. And those of us who lived through the derecho can’t help
but recall the intense feelings of that time as we watched the slide
show on Martin’s shared desktop.
It was an interesting night. I’m
glad that the Gazette gave us this opportunity to learn more about the
stories behind the news images.
