Storm rips across the Q-C
INFOBOX:
MidAmerican Energy
To report a power outage or downed line: 800-799-4443
General information: Residential customers call 888-427-5632; business customers call 800-329-6261
Furious winds in Monday’s brief but powerful thunderstorm did such unprecedented damage to MidAmerican Energy’s infrastructure that some customers could be without power for up to three days.
“This is some of the worst damage to our system we’ve seen in years, and that includes the recent ice storms,” MidAmerican spokeswoman Ann Thelen said. “We do appreciate our customers’ patience. We’ve seen a lot of storms in the state over the last few months, including floods, but we haven’t seen this type of tree damage, at least not to the MidAmerican system.”
The power failures shut down businesses and snarled traffic. The hum of chainsaws filled neighborhoods as people cleared branches from their yards. Residents without damage spent time on porches to escape their stifling, powerless homes or wandered their neighborhoods surveying the damage.
Heather Mix, 12, who lives in the 5000 block of 50th Street in Heritage Addition in Moline, was walking on her street with friends, amazed at the damage.
“I was real worried and scared,” she said of her reaction when the storm hit. “My neighbor next door had a tree fall on their house and another tree on their garage.”
The Quad-City area had nearly 135,000 MidAmerican customers without power at the peak of the outage Monday. Late Monday night, 62,300 Quad-City area customers were still without power.
“A significant number of customers should have power restored within 72 hours, but others could be longer than that time frame,” Thelen said. “We are bringing in crews from across the state and from other states to try and get power restored as quickly as we can.”
Damage to power poles and lines will be triaged, so repairs that restore power to the most customers in the timeliest manner are done first, she said. MidAmerican has 400 workers in the area trying to restore power. The Quad-City Botanical Center served as a staging area for repair crews.
Police and firefighters directed traffic or kept people away from downed power lines Monday. John Deere Road in Moline was shut down in places for several hours because of downed power lines.
About 3,000 customers of Eastern Iowa Light and Power Cooperative also lost power during the heat of the storm, according to Jim Williams, co-op spokesman.
The majority of damage was to homes south of Interstate 80 in the Quad-Cities area, and in southern Scott County, including the Buffalo area. A few broken poles and scattered outages occurred north of Interstate 80.
“About half our customers had power back by noon,” Williams said. Hopes to restore power by Monday night ended as the damage prevent crews from working late. The were about 1,000 individual homes without power late Monday, in Scott, Muscatine and Johnson counties.
Officials hoped to have the power restored to all customers by noon Tuesday, Williams said.
The Illinois Quad-Cities bore the brunt of the storm. Moline Mayor Don Welvaert declared a state of emergency early Monday, and Rock Island had a large swath of the city without power at the peak of the outage.
The wind gusts didn’t discriminate based on economics, blasting the west end of Rock Island and the Wildwood neighborhood in Moline.
Power poles near 31st Avenue and 5th Street in Rock Island were heavily damaged by winds, with several snapped and others tilted from the wind. Snapped power poles were endemic along 11th Street and west.
Ken Mackey pointed out the power pole that snapped in front of his house in the 2400 block of 11th Street, leaving utility lines draped over a car and a van in his driveway.
“I was looking out to see how bad the storm was and saw the pole down,” he said, standing outside his house with his wife, Marion, and daughter, Tracy. “How am I supposed to get to work?”
The Mackeys discovered that checking out storm damage was a spectator sport.
“We’ve had a lot of rubberneckers,” Ken Mackey said. “A lot of people have done a double-take.”
In the west end of Rock Island, the storm toppled trees across streets and into a few homes. Neighbors awakened by breaking branches and wind-driven rain worked through the morning and into the afternoon with chainsaws and elbow grease to free cars and reopen streets.
Many were thankful to discover that trees had narrowly missed hitting their houses but some worried that hot and humid weather and a prolonged power outage could be a dangerous combination.
“There’s a lot of seniors (in this neighborhood),” said Willie Johnson, who lives near 18th Avenue and 11th Street. “If this heat comes back up it’s going to be a big problem.”
East Moline Mayor John Thodos said the city was providing water to Silvis, Ill., on Monday since the neighboring city’s pumping facility was without power. Thodos said City Hall was running on a generator Monday and many residents were still without power.
Employees of the Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad fanned out in the Quad-Cities, checking the safety of rail signals. With the power outage, the crossings needed either a generator to operate or be operated by hand, said Herb Jones, spokesman in Sioux Falls, S.D.
Meanwhile, dozens of boat owners will have to wait and see what kind of damage their vessels suffered at the Marquis Yacht Basin near the Captain’s Table on Moline’s River Drive. Metal canopies used to shelter yachts docked in slips along several piers were severely damaged.
Terry Sorensen, of Port Byron, Ill., surveyed the scene Monday afternoon and happily discovered his boat had minor damage and his daughter’s boat made it through without any damage. Others weren’t so lucky.
“The boats are wedged in, and the docks are radically twisted and warped,” he said.
Keith Byers, of Bettendorf, is the harbor master at Lindsay Yacht Club in Davenport. He was looking over damage at Marquis after receiving several phone calls from yacht owners seeking slips to dock at Lindsay. He said he has no room.
“It will take quite awhile to get this assessed,” he said. “It is a slow process.”
He said two of the piers with many boat slips were pushed several feet by the storm, moving piers and banging several of the large yachts into each other and tearing and tossing canopies.
The storm knocked out power to the 514-room Isle of Capri gaming complex, but most of Bettendorf fared better than other cities. The outage left the hotel’s guests in the dark, Isle spokeswoman Jill Haynes said. The casino, which operates on a generator, remained open, and the Isle provided its visitors with doughnuts and coffee in the lobby.
Bettendorf Public Works Director Wally Mook said the city’s west end suffered a fair amount of damage from Central Avenue north to Spruce Hills Drive and between 14th and 23rd streets. City Hall operated on a generator. Traffic signals remained out in parts of Bettendorf and Davenport for most of the day.
MidAmerican Energy
To report a power outage or downed line: 800-799-4443
General information: Residential customers call 888-427-5632; business customers call 800-329-6261
Kurt Allemeier can be contacted at (563) 383-2360 or kallemeier@qctimes.com. Doug Schorpp can be contacted at (563) 383-2292 or dschorpp@qctimes.com.