Weekend Storms Leave Thousands Without Power

By Gordon HopkinsThe storms that rolled through southeast Nebraska over the weekend left thousands without power, some for nearly 48 hours. Winds of more than 80 miles per hours (mph) toppled trees and power poles and damaged structures. Fairbury was not hit as hard as some areas but restoring power and repairing damage kept line operators busy. Fairbury Mayor Kelly Davis told FJN, “This time it wasn’t real bad that I know of. There are a lot of branches down, but I haven’t heard of anything big. A lot of limbs caused switches and fuses to trip in the electrical distribution system. The guys worked pretty much through the night, from 1:30 a.m. until afternoon Sunday. They replaced two or three poles also I believe.”While there were some downed branches and power outages, Jefferson County overall was spared the brunt of the storms, according to Jefferson and Saline County Emergency Manager John McKee. He noted that winds had begun to diminish by the time they hit Jefferson County, “ I know there’s just some trees down, some power outages, which is going to happen with winds. We were lucky enough that the storm started dying to our west a little bit.”McKee said, “I think we were at 65 (mph), that was the highest wind speed we had, and west of us was in the 80s, almost 90.” Gage County Emergency Manager Lisa Weigand reported some tree damage and power outages as well.Saline County was not nearly so lucky.“That Northwestern area was bad,” said McKee. “The whole town of Friend, every yard, you couldn’t see the grass because of leaves, tree branches. There were trees on cars, trucks. There were trees on houses, laid over. Trees uprooted. Big, huge, trees broken off downtown, I know at least one business lost a roof. The bank had some damage.”Roads had to be closed due to downed power lines. McKee said, “That high voltage line that comes from the west, going east, north of friend, and crosses Highway 6. It blew a whole bunch of poles down on it, so the wires were laying across Highway 6.” A tornado warning was issued at approximately 2 a.m., Sunday morning, for southwestern Lancaster and east central Saline Counties. According to Jefferson and Saline County emergency management, a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located eight miles west of Wilber, or 25 miles northwest of Beatrice, moving northeast at 25 mph. Rotation was radar-indicated.

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