ImageFirst News

It’s been 2 weeks since a Derecho came through Grinnell, Iowa, the home of our company and many of our employees. We've learned a couple things (signage-wise) and want to share that with you.

August 10^th, 2 weeks ago, a Dere­cho came through Grin­nell, Iowa, the home of our com­pa­ny and many of our employ­ees. Poweshiek Coun­ty has been declared a dis­as­ter area. This storm cov­ered approx­i­mate­ly 770 miles in 14 hours with wind speeds around 100 miles per hour and caused a lot of dam­age to fam­i­ly, friends, and clients across the Mid­west. We are for­tu­nate not to have more dam­age than we do. We are even more for­tu­nate to be part of a larg­er com­mu­ni­ty that con­tin­ues to help.

The storm hit on Mon­day morn­ing, we lost all pow­er and sent peo­ple home to assess their home’s dam­age. Our team stayed home on Tues­day, August 11^th, because you can’t build signs with­out pow­er and there was a lot of clean up to do, and there still is. We were back at it on Wednes­day build­ing signs and send­ing them on their way. 

Why are we shar­ing Dere­cho details with you? 

Two Rea­sons: 

First, our IF sign is STILL STAND­ING like a champ. 

There are light poles flat­tened around the cor­ner (see pics) and alu­minum blown through the corn fields near­by, but our Image­First sign faired well, and it’s a big. 

What’s that say? This alu­minum and flex face sign (steel poles into the ground) is engi­neered to the wind speed of our area, like all the sig­nage we cre­ate. We don’t over-engi­neer (dri­ves price) or under-engi­neer (reduces qual­i­ty). We pro­duce sig­nage based on the geo­graph­i­cal wind speeds of the areas of the sign’s final home. 

Sec­ond­ly, to share the best prod­uct if you have to replace a sign face. Flex Face.

☝🏻 This sign took a 2×4 to the face (👇🏼 Tom­my Boy anyone?).

The bright side? Only one face was dam­aged and it’s an illu­mi­nat­ed flex face sign. Replace­ment cost is near­ly 30% less than if this was an alu­minum illu­mi­nat­ed sign. Moral of the sto­ry, in our unof­fi­cial ​“Dere­cho sign test­ing of 2020” the flex face signs fared bet­ter than oth­ers (with what we’ve seen so far, locally). 

Have Ques­tions or Sign Dam­age? We can help! info@​imagefirstsigns.​com