CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Governor Kim Reynolds and the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency toured parts of Eastern Iowa hardest hit my last Monday's derecho.
"Between the utility workers, the Iowa National Guard and the Department of Transportation, we had more than 4,900 people working on restoring power--most of those are in Linn County" says Gov. Kim Reynolds.
FEMA head Pete Gaynor was with Reynolds in Cedar Rapids the same day President Trump approved a federal disaster declaration that will provide clean-up and recovery fun
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"Like all disasters, a response is most successful when it's locally executed, state managed, and federally supported" he says.
Trump is expected to be in Cedar Rapids on Tuesday.
As for massive power outages caused by the storm, Alliant Energy's Terry Kouba says as of Monday afternoon, 266 of the 340 Alliant communities initially effected have power available to at least 90 percent of homes and businesses.
"We are replacing more than 2,500 downed poles from this storm. That's the number of polls or crews would typically replace in eight months--and they'er going to get it done in a little over a week" he says.
Alliant says it wants to have power restored to 90 percent of their customers by the end of the day Tuesday. The company says more than 240,000 customers lost power after the storm.