Oak fells flood survivors Rock Island home

By Tom Saul | Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Pat Lerch thought she had escaped natural disaster.

The veteran of the 1993 and 2001 floods, who had since bought her Rock Island house on high ground, saw a century-old oak tree fall on her home, destroy a good chunk of her attic and kitchen and sever the sun room during Monday’s unusually strong wind storm.

Tuesday night, Pat and her husband Jim, along with their grandchildren, were getting comfortable at the Rock Island Holiday Inn.

“We’ve had enough of disaster,” Pat Lerch said.

They narrowly escaped the falling oak tree unharmed, and now Pat anticipates months before returning to the house in the 1400 block of 45th Avenue.

The tree busted through the roof, toppled bricks and boards and ripped up both driveways. A bigger tree also smashed their garage and now rests across another neighbor’s driveway.

Pat said her Illinois City home was flooded in 1993 and 2001 before FEMA bought her out. “We were high and dry in Rock Island,” she said.

A day after a fast-moving wind storm downed trees and knocked out power throughout the Quad-Cities, the continuing lack of electricity to cool buildings, run refrigeration and pump water and untreated sewage is causing the biggest headache for the area.

The Rock Island County Health Department urged those who have had food stored in refrigerators and freezers since the power outage early Monday to use caution before eating it and to consider throwing it away.

“If there is any doubt, throw it out,” said Theresa Foes, of the health department. “If it has been stored for this many hours without power, it’s probably not good anymore.”

The city of Buffalo, Iowa, in Scott County began passing untreated sewage into an unnamed tributary of the Mississippi River on Tuesday morning because it lacks pumping capacity to move it to the city treatment plant, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources said.

In Illinois, Milan battled potential sewage backups into homes and businesses because pumping stations lack power, Mayor Duane Dawson said.

Moline ran some of its pumping stations with portable generators, but outages knocked out aerators at the city’s two treatment plants that allow micro-organisms to more thoroughly break down and treat sewage, said Dennis Web, general manager of the city’s treatment facilities.

“There is no aeration to keep particles suspended,” Web said. “We are treating some of the sludge with chlorine to disinfect it, and we can transfer some of it to settling ponds and treat it later, but I don’t know how things are going to shake out. I’ve never had to deal with a plant that has been without power for 32 hours.”

MidAmerican Energy continued to repair damage caused to poles and lines by toppled trees and limbs, said company spokeswoman Ann Thelen. In the Quad-Cities, at about 10 p.m. Tuesday, about 42,000 customers were without electricity, down from a peak of 135,000 just after the storm hit Monday morning.

Rock Island and Moline continued to have the greatest number of customers without power. By late Tuesday evening, Rock Island had about 14,000 without power while those who lacked electricity in Moline totaled about 15,500.

Power was restored Tuesday to the Quad-City International Airport, Moline, and Trinity Medical Center, Moline, Thelen said.

Hundreds of utility workers from eight states and MidAmerican Energy are in the Quad-Cities cutting away tree limbs and repairing power lines, she added.

Thelen said significant progress was being made in Milan and southern Rock Island and that a couple of thousand people in those areas would have power restored about midnight.

“On the Illinois side of the Quad-Cities, the storm impacted 65 percent of our customers,” Thelen said. “Twenty-five percent of our entire customer base in Iowa were impacted. The largest percentage in previous years is 22 percent.”

An estimated 150 utility poles in the Quad-Cities were felled by the storm, she said, adding that number could go higher.

The biggest problem is the trees, she said. “This is the heaviest tree damage we’ve seen. The tree damage is so significant, there’s nothing like it that we’ve seen.”

During a news conference Tuesday morning, Rock Island County Board Chairman Jim Bohnsack praised MidAmerican for its efforts to reconnect customers and for keeping local officials abreast of progress.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency provided a semi-truck load each of ice and water for distribution to outlying areas of Rock Island County that remained without power, Bohnsack said. Help was also being offered to farmers who were unable to pump water to their livestock because of power outages.

Rock Island County was declared a state disaster area Tuesday, and Bohnsack said a dollar amount in public assistance is expected by the end of the week. “I expect it to be way over $1 million,” he said.

The American Red Cross of the Quad-Cities Area kept emergency shelters open at the Sherrard Fire Station and Milan Community Center, mainly as places for people to cool off and to get food and water, said Leslie Anthony, a spokeswoman.

“We’ve also been looking for hotel rooms in the area for some of those with existing medical conditions that require that they have power,” Anthony said. “So far, we’ve placed about 30 of them but, because of everything that’s going on in the area, it has been very hard to find rooms.”

Foes urged those who use well water and who have been without power to drink and bath only in bottled water. Once power is restored, owners should flush their wells and make sure the water is not contaminated before using it again.

In Rock Island, 1,200 city water customers were hand-delivered copies of a boil order after a building contractor working in the southwest part of the city ruptured a water line while attempting to replace a fire hydrant, said Bob Hawes, city public works director. The order is in effect until further notice.

A number of streets remain closed in the Illinois Quad-Cities, mainly because of downed power lines. John Deere Road between 16th Street and 38th Street and east of 70th Street remains closed in Moline. Rock Island still had portions of several streets closed, including West 31st Avenue at the Iowa Interstate Railroad tracks and 17th Street south of Trinity Medical Center-West Campus.

“They will be reopened as MidAmerican works its way through the city and repairs its power lines,” Hawes said.

(Mark Ridolfi and Thomas Geyer contributed to this story.)

Tom Saul can be contacted at (563) 383-2453 or tsaul@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.