Heavy Rains & High Winds = Broken Branches & Downed Lines

Heavy rain, causing ponding, popping manhole covers and temporary surface flooding…..and gusty winds, resulting in tree branches falling on power lines and knocking out electricity.

storm

(Photo from Eastern Iowa Fireground Photos Facebook)

All of that was the order of the day yesterday(Sun) in southeast Iowa and west-central Illinois.

Authorities responded to reports of a large limb and wire down on Madison Avenue; that put about 1200 Alliant Energy customers in the dark for about an hour. A little later, the storm took out a tree near Main and Maple, leaving another 120 residents without power until late afternoon. An Alliant spokesman says more than 100 customers in the Ft. Madison area and about 350 in Keokuk also had their electricity go down yesterday(Sun) afternoon.

Back in the Burlington area, someone reported part of a roof torn off on the north side of town…there were branches and/or utility lines down at Griswold near Oak…on Summer across from Casey’s…on North between 5th and 6th…and on Gnahn.

Elsewhere, several trees were broken off and others uprooted northwest of Carthage…police reported tree limbs down and a branch fell through the roof of a trailer home in Kahoka…there were trees and power lines down in a number of locations in Lee County…and various weather spotters reported wind gusts as high as 50 miles-an-hour in Burlington…56 miles-an-hour southeast of Colchester and 70 miles-per-hour in McDonough County.

How much rain did we get…officially…in the Burlington area?

Burlington’s total…as of 7 o’clock this morning…was 3-and-a-quarter inches. Other totals include 2.2 inches in Gladstone…1.06 inches in Donnellson…1.94 inches in Keokuk…1.37 in LaHarpe…1.58 in Washington…1.86 in Memphis, Missouri…and 1.09 inches in New Boston, Illinois.