A wind farm in southwest Iowa on Wednesday showed the fury of Mother Nature after taking a direct hit from an EF3 tornado.Dramatic drone footage shot by local storm chasers and posted to YouTube shows the devastating effects of 160 km/h winds on the massive turbines operated by MidAmerican Energy Company.The structures are torn apart like matchsticks sending the blades hundreds of metres into the air and causing the towers to catch fire and burn..“This was an unprecedented impact on our wind fleet, and we have operated wind farms since 2004,” MidAmerican said in a statement.There are presently 73,000 wind turbines in operation across the so-called US ‘wind belt’, which stretches from Texas north through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and large swaths of Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. Many of those states also are prone to tornadoes, especially during spring.Experts said wind turbines are built to withstand high wind speeds and severe weather events including tornadoes, hurricanes and lightning strikes, but few are designed to withstand a direct hit from a powerful twister — although it is relatively rare..Requirements vary from state to state about how far turbines must be located from other structures such as houses or farm buildings. In this case there were no injuries as a result of the turbines themselves although four people were killed and another 35 injured as a result of more than a dozen separate twisters, three of which were major tornadoes.At least 202 homes were destroyed including much of the town of Greenfield, with a population of about 2,000 people, located 90 kilometres southwest of Des Moines.Iowa governor Kim Reynolds has declared a disaster and more inclement weather is expected today, on Thursday.
A wind farm in southwest Iowa on Wednesday showed the fury of Mother Nature after taking a direct hit from an EF3 tornado.Dramatic drone footage shot by local storm chasers and posted to YouTube shows the devastating effects of 160 km/h winds on the massive turbines operated by MidAmerican Energy Company.The structures are torn apart like matchsticks sending the blades hundreds of metres into the air and causing the towers to catch fire and burn..“This was an unprecedented impact on our wind fleet, and we have operated wind farms since 2004,” MidAmerican said in a statement.There are presently 73,000 wind turbines in operation across the so-called US ‘wind belt’, which stretches from Texas north through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and large swaths of Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. Many of those states also are prone to tornadoes, especially during spring.Experts said wind turbines are built to withstand high wind speeds and severe weather events including tornadoes, hurricanes and lightning strikes, but few are designed to withstand a direct hit from a powerful twister — although it is relatively rare..Requirements vary from state to state about how far turbines must be located from other structures such as houses or farm buildings. In this case there were no injuries as a result of the turbines themselves although four people were killed and another 35 injured as a result of more than a dozen separate twisters, three of which were major tornadoes.At least 202 homes were destroyed including much of the town of Greenfield, with a population of about 2,000 people, located 90 kilometres southwest of Des Moines.Iowa governor Kim Reynolds has declared a disaster and more inclement weather is expected today, on Thursday.
