AMES, Iowa — The city of Ames is still trying to fix what the derecho destroyed.
That includes the electric department, which took 8 days to restore power..
The Ames electric department said the community was very supportive as they fixed the power last month.
But going forward there are technical changes that could help the department do repair work faster.
"Obviously we knew everybody was out but as we started getting people back on we didn't know where these small areas of damage were at that we needed to get to so we were relying on people to call us and let us know. If we had smart metering we would know," Mike Brown, Ames' Electric Distribution Manager said.
Check out our coverage of the derecho through our YouTube playlist below:
Brown said in 35 years with the department this is by far the worst storm he's seen but was proud of the effort his department put in getting everybody back online.'