Storm Wreaks Havoc In Jefferson County

Thursday morning, residents of Fairbury found their drive to work an obstacle course of debris, mostly in the form of broken branches and sticks but also trash cans, lawn furniture and even Christmas decorations, left strewn across roads after the previous night's storm.Earlier this month, Jefferson County switched to a new public notification system, Alertsense, which issued multiple hazardous weather warnings starting the morning of Wednesday, December 15. Severe thunderstorms, high winds and even possible tornadoes were indicated by the National Weather Service.Numerous schools and businesses closed early in anticipation of the storm.The National Weather Service also issued a Fire Weather Warning, due to high winds and low relative humidity. Temperatures reached an unseasonable 74 degrees in Jefferson County. Wind speeds increased throughout the day, with gusts eventually reaching more than 80 miles per hour (mph).A high wind warning was issued by AlertSense at 11:50 a.m. for portions of east central, northeast and southeast Nebraska and southwest and west central Iowa.A tornado watch was issued at 1:30 p.m. for eastern Nebraska and western Iowa.At 2:25 p.m., severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from Hordville to four miles northwest of Deshler, moving northeast at 85 mph.Emergency CrewsThe severe weather kept emergency crews, including the sheriff's office, ambulance, fire districts and electric line workers, on the run for several hours. At approximately 3 p.m., two emergency calls came in at almost exactly the same time. First, a semi truck overturned on Highway 136, west of Fairbury.No one was reported seriously injured. Second, a downed light pole behind Ray's Apple Market in Fairbury toppled and started a fire.Just as crews were dispatched, the rain began. Hard rain only lasted a few minutes but torrents coupled with gusting winds made travel on the roads dangerous. Despite the rain, the fire was still burning when Fairbury Rural Fire arrived. Firefighters had to wait until electricity was turned off before they could put out the fire.While still battling this blaze, another call came in for a fire in the Gilead area.At 5 p.m., another fire was reported in Fairbury, this time behind Livingston Enterprises and Maatsch’s, both on K Street. At 5:15 p.m., a tall pine tree was reported fallen over onto power lines. The tree had to be cut down. At approximately 5:50 p.m., Diller and Steele City fire districts were called to battle a fire caused by a downed power line.This scenario was repeated again and again as firefighters were called to several scenes throughout the night where electric power lines were pulled down by high winds, sparking fires.Power OutagesMultiple power outages throughout the area resulted from the severe weather, sometimes more than once in the same location. Outages lasted from minutes to hours.FJN spoke to John McKee, Emergency manager for Jefferson and Saline Counties, who noted there was sufficient advance warning for counties to prepare.“There was planning ahead of this which the public, those folks don't see that, but behind the scenes, yes,” McKee said. “When I first started hearing what was going on and, which I do every year if there's an event like this, a snowstorm, ice storm, whatever, contacting the appropriate departments that would be involved in it.”McKee added “You know, there's only so much they can do.”DamageAt Jefferson Intermediate, bleachers were upended by the winds and tossed onto the track, which had recently been resurfaced. At Fairbury Junior-Senior High School, a downed tree landed across the Cross Country Course bridge along M Street. Superintended Stephen Grizzle confirmed Fairbury Public Schools suffered no other damage.“There's a lot of damage to individual buildings of any size, open-front buildings, sheds, roofs blown off, but you know hopefully insurance covers that for everybody,” McKee said. “Buildings (owned by the county) from what I'm finding out is, very little to no damage.”While there were tornadoes reported in other parts of the state. McKee indicated no tornadoes were spotted in Jefferson or Saline Counties, “We did have a wall cloud move through the western part of the county and exited kind of in the north central area that, I think, we had a little bit more damage underneath it, but there were no tornadoes.”More importantly, McKee indicated no deaths or serious injuries have been reported.

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