Power outages close Deere plant

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By Jennifer DeWitt | Monday, July 21, 2008 7:34 PM CDT | () comments

It was anything but “business as usual” after a thunderstorm rolled through the Quad-Cities early Monday leaving many companies — particularly on the Illinois side — dealing with damaged buildings, a lack of electricity and contingency emergency plans.

Companies big and small had to scurry to find alternative power sources, repair damage and operate with smaller staffs as their employees had storm problems of their own to address.

Power outages across the Illinois Quad-Cities forced Deere & Co. to send workers home from five of its facilities, including the Milan Parts Distribution Center, John Deere Information Systems in East Moline and John Deere Aviation, Crown Center and Advanced Testing Lab, all in Moline. Company spokesman Ken Golden said in all about 1,500 Deere employees were impacted in some way “either by being sent home, working from home, working from a different building or working as part of a skeleton crew to react to the situation.”

None of Deere’s facilities were damaged in the storm, but downed power lines and trees near John Deere’s World Headquarters in Moline forced employees to find alternate routes to work.

“We have people who can work from home and many are doing that,” Golden said, adding that many others had downed lines and trees of their own to clean up. “We care that they take care of those problems first.”

He said emergency parts distribution operations were set up at other facilities, such as Indianapolis, to ensure that customers’ needs were met. A temporary call center for the Milan operation also was put in place for the John Deere dealers. Security staffs were assigned to watch for problems at the facilities without power.

Also in Moline, SouthPark Mall was forced to close for the day due to storm damage and a lack of power, according to Darcy Jacks, the mall’s marketing director.

The mall sustained roof damage over both the Younkers Court and the Von Maur Court. Jacks said as many as five skylights were blown out in front of the Von Maur department store.

Restoration crews were busy at work Monday afternoon repairing the roof. Employees from both SouthPark and NorthPark Mall cleaned up the numerous uprooted trees in the parking lot in hopes of re-opening today.

“The good thing is everyone is safe,” she said, adding that only the housekeeping staff was inside the mall when the storm hit. “They’re all so well-trained that that they took cover like they were supposed to,” Jacks said.

With downed lines, trees and limbs across the region, travel along John Deere Road was at a standstill early Monday. However, big box retailers such as Wal-Mart and Farm & Fleet remained open, although Farm & Fleet was running on generator power.

Elliott Aviation, located on the south side of the Quad-City International Airport, sustained mild roof damage to its new Moline aircraft painting facility.

“We had a report of 94 mile per hour winds,” Ruben Segura-Coto, Elliott’s general manager, said while talking on his cell phone from the rooftop. “We have some water coming in. Luckily, no aircraft was damaged.”

But roof damage was only part of the problem. Segura-Coto said most of his employees could not come to work because of their own storm problems.

“There’s no power, so the paint facility is shut down,” he added. “We’re doing as much as can with daylight. Like everybody else, we’re looking to get a bunch of compressors (to run our tools).”

Jennifer DeWitt can be contacted at (563) 383-2318 or jdewitt@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.