Storm damage varies
Originally published 10:22 a.m., June 16, 2009
Updated 10:11 a.m., June 16, 2009
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A funnel or two was spotted on Doppler radar over Chase County, according to weather observer David Croy of Cottonwood Falls.
“But nothing touched down,” he said.
He recorded 4.6 inches of rain at Cottonwood, with hail about one inch in diameter.
“And a lot of it, too,” Croy said. “It just kept coming, kept coming, and kept coming. The hail and the rain, too.”
The area recorded winds up to 60 miles an hour.
“I sat up there and bobbed up and down like a cork,” Croy said of last night’s as he recorded weather information at the station west of town. “I’ve got a Suburban. It’s a big vehicle. It was hopping up and down.”
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Morris County Emergency Management Coordinator Jennifer Kassebaum said the county had some flash flooding and damage from straight winds.
“It’s not the hail damage that Alta Vista received,” Kassebaum said. “We had some hail damage,” though it was not serious.
“It looks like Wilsey, Burdick area and probably along 56 Highway, there you certainly can see where there was some flooding and washing out.”
Some homes in the southwest part of the county remained without power this morning, she said.
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To the east of Lyon County, in Osage County, Sheriff Lori Dunn said her county may have escaped without serious damage.
“Just lots of rain and some nasty lightning,” she said.
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To the east of Lyon County, in Osage County, Sheriff Lori Dunn said her county may have escaped without serious damage.
“Just lots of rain and some nasty lightning,” she said.
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Lisa Fuller, who lives about two miles north of Emporia, said the family lost electrical power from 8 p.m. Monday to around 5 a.m. today. The power outage caused problems because the sump pump in the basement won’t work without power. The family had a generator but couldn’t find it in the dark. Fuller said they took to bucket brigade hauling water out of the basement.
“We kept our basement nice and dry,” Fuller said. “We hauled a lot of buckets out of our basement. We’ve had this happen before so we knew what we had to do. It was a long night hauling buckets out.”
Fuller said they hauled buckets out until about 2 a.m. when they found the generator and hooked it up.
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There are currently 714 Westar customers without power in Emporia, according to Bill Hines of Westar, and crews are fighting tree limbs as they work to restore power.
“Throughout our area we’ve got seven poles that have been damaged and in most areas we have to get trees cleared out before we can get the outage fixed up,” Hines said.
Damage from the storms was scattered, mainly throughout the northwest, northeast and southeast quarters of the city. Damage in the southwest quarter was minimal.
Between 600 and 800 Lyon-Coffey Electric customers are still without power, mainly in Coffey County, according to general manager Scott Whittington.
“Our main problem is in Coffey County we’ve got several poles down,” Whittington said. “Our crews worked through the night and have restored quite a bit, but we’re still trying to get poles and line back up.”
In some cases limbs tore through power lines, but Whittington said many poles were knocked over by the sheer force of the winds.
“Just north of the airport here in Coffey County we lost 14 poles in a row,” Whittington said. “And we’ve still got some outages in Lyon County, but not nearly what we have in Coffey.”
Lyon-Coffey Electric crews are working non-stop to get power restored to all customers, Whittington said.
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Tornado warning sirens sounded Monday night in Madison, Eureka, and Hamilton, after a rotating wall cloud was sighted heading toward Greenwood County from Butler County.
“As far as I know, we never had any tornadoes,” said Greenwood County Undersheriff Charles Bitler, who was stationed on the back side of the storm, near Butler County line, keeping an eye on the wall cloud. “We did have a rotating wall cloud that we pretty much saw from Butler County all the way up to Madison. ...It looked like it was on the ground from where I was at.”
Bitler said the county was notified that the National Weather Service had detected rotation near Madison, though no reports of any tornado touchdowns had been received by this morning.
Madison resident Chad Dean, who took to the basement with his family when the sirens sounded, said that his rain gauge held 3.75 inches of water this morning.
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Despite the high winds and driving rains, property damages from the storm were less than feared in most of Lyon and surrounding counties.
County Engineer Chip Woods said that road and bridge department workers had been out working since 12:15 a.m. today.
“This is at least the fourth major event we’ve had this year,” Woods said. “We’re out barricading roads right now.”
The extent of the water damage will not be known until the waters recede, though Woods said the driving rains most likely washed gravel from the roads.
Damage from a storm and flooding that lasted about 3 weeks earlier this year had been expensive, with additional damages mounting.
“I think we estimated around $200,000 just for that event,” Woods said.
Woods and Lyon County Sheriff Gary Eichorn emphasized again that drivers need to not only remember, but to heed, the “Turn Around, Don’t Drown” mantra during flooding.
One vehicle was stranded early in the storm when its driver attempted to ford a into a low-water crossing on Road 220 just off Burlingame Road.
“Apparently there’s a sign there that says, ‘Caution, flooding during high water,’” Eichorn said this morning. “... When our officer got there, they were out talking to the road grader.”
He said rainfall reports ranged from about an inch and a half near Admire to about 5 and a half inches near Saffordville.
“Down toward the Olpe area, was getting a lot of pea-sized jail.”
Emporia received 2.66 inches of rain at its official weather station at the airport, according to NWS meterologist Matt Wolters. Northwest of town approximately 3 miles, at another weather observer’s location, 4.08 inches of rain was recorded.
Wolters said that the Cottonwood River is forecast to flood with a crest of about 25 feet.
“Just looking upstream there, Plymouth on the Cottonwood is still rising, so there’s plenty of water coming down the Cottonwood River,” Wolters said.
“The Neosho on north is forecast to remain below flood stage now. The forecast has it cresting around 16 feet, with flood stage at 19 feet, so there’s a pretty good cushion there for the Neosho.”
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Monday evening’s storms added insult to injury for area crops. Last week wheat and corn was damaged by a hail storm. Monday evening rain and wind further damaged crops.
Brian Rees, Lyon County Extension agent, said this morning that he didn’t see much in the way of crop damage until he got to Americus.
“What little whet there was got laid over a little bit,” Rees said. “There was some corn that was pretty much flattened. That’s not uncommon. It will come back. It might be difficult to harvest but it will come back and survive.”
Rees said corn is limber enough that it will come back. However, flooding will cause problems to the bean crop.
“Corn can withstand being under or in water for a period of time,” Rees said. “Beans if they are underwater more than the river coming up and down they are pretty much done. Beans do not handle being underwater. If they are underwater for more than 12 hours then they are done.”
Rees said the damage near the rivers could be severe.
“There’s going to be quite a few that a pretty well done along the Neosho and Cottonwood,” he said.
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There were no major incidents with Monday evening’s storm in Emporia, according to local authorities.
Capt. Steve Kuhlmann of the Emporia Fire Department said this morning that the department responded to two electrical lines down and a fire alarm overnight from the weather. The department responded to trees down in the 1200 block of Walnut Street and the 700 block of Union Street. They also responded to an alarm at Emporia State University, which turned out to be tripped by the weather. Crews also responded to a smoke odor in the electrical panel of a home in the 2100 block of West Sixth Ave.
“Things were OK,” Kuhlmann said. “It was storm related.”
Kuhlmann said water was about 4 inches over the road in places on Sixth Avenue and up to a foot of water covered the sides of the roads.
Emporia Police Department reported limbs down and power outages all over Emporia, said Sgt. Mark Summey of the Emporia Police Department.
“There are a lot of limbs down,” Summey said. “There were electrical lines down in some places.”
•••Wednesday’s forecast is for partly cloudy skies with a high near 93 degrees. Forecasters expect south winds to blow between 5 and 15 mph, with gusts up to 20 mph.
create (anonymous) says...
I can't think of the name of it, but Allen Sullivan of Sullivan Boiler Works installed one for me. It is attached to the sump pump and designed to work on water pressure alone when the power fails. All master plumbers can do this. Sorry I can't think of the name of this concept, but it works, and sure is worth it. I could never bail water otherwise.
June 16, 2009 at 9:35 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
outdoorguy (anonymous) says...
Have freind in Altsvista, whole town a mess after baseball size hail and horrible winds. Houses had siding stripped and holes punch thu everything! Hail was driven by high winds. He said he dosen't think there is a house or car window left in town!
June 16, 2009 at 9:53 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
gg (anonymous) says...
I wonder if the writer of this story has ever heard of the "spell check" feature? Proof read?
The grammar and spelling is atrocious considering the website article represents an actual newspaper! Just saying! :)
June 16, 2009 at 2:29 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )