8/11/2009
By MICHAEL STRAND/Salina Journal

Video of area storm cleanup Watch video of cleanup efforts throughout Salina.  Heavy rain and wind hit Salina just before noon Monday, August 10, 2009. Videos: The steeple of the First Southern Baptist Church at Ohio and Magnolia was blown over, crashing into the roof. Cleanup of tress on Ellsworth street. A resident of Salina begins cleanup using a chainsaw. Children that will return to school later this week spent one of their last free days of summer helping cleanup tree limbs.  Additional Story Coverage: Smashing Storm Spire punctures hole in church's roof Storm was 'dark and creepy' Send us your storm photos!  Submit your photos, click here.

Winds up to 79 mph down power lines, tree limbs in Salina

It could be several days before electrical power is restored to some parts of north-central Kansas after a severe storm late Monday morning that brought heavy rain and hurricane-strength wind seemingly out of a clear blue sky.

"I'll bet we're still working into Thursday," said Tom Sydow, regional director for Westar Energy. "A good chunk will be done Tuesday and Wednesday, probably 90 percent."

Dean Speaks, interim director of Saline County Emergency Management, spent much of the afternoon assessing damage around Saline County.

Among the damage, he said, was a downed storm siren in the 1100 block of Republic Circle.

"It was on the ground -- the wind took the pole with it," Speaks said.

A corner of a roof also was blown from a building at the Saline County Livestock and Expo Center in Kenwood Park, he said.

He had heard of no storm-related injuries.

At the Kwik Shop at Ninth and Claflin streets Monday afternoon, two large cranes were stabilizing what was left of a metal canopy over the gas pumps.

Employee Susan Berg said she was told that a car drove out from beneath the canopy five seconds before the top of the canopy blew off and turned over.

"Whenever there was a big wind, you could just see it wanting to fly," she said. "It's just a blessing it didn't take flight onto any vehicles."

By about 1:30 p.m., the Saline County Commission had approved a disaster declaration for the county.

As of about 4:30 p.m. Monday, a reported 1,417 Westar customers were without power in Saline County, as were 785 in Dickinson County and more than a dozen in Ottawa County.

Sydow expected those numbers to rise as people got home from work to find their power out.

His prediction was correct.

By 7:30 p.m., the number of Westar customers without power in Saline County had risen to 2,209, and the number in Dickinson County had risen to 786.

"There's major damage south of Abilene that's going to take a while to repair," Sydow said. There were reports of wind speeds of more than 100 mph in southern Dickinson County during the storm.

The damage there included about three-quarters of a mile of power lines down in one spot and "a couple of miles of poles down" between Woodbine and Enterprise, Sydow said.

DS&O Rural Electric also was dealing with significant, widespread outages, after transmission lines to three substations were knocked out.

As of late Monday afternoon, the company could not yet provide an estimate for when service might be restored.

"We have some interconnects that will definitely affect them," Sydow said.

Downed power lines prompted several road closings in far eastern Saline County.

County engineer Neil Cable said Donmyer Road was closed between Old Highway 40 and Country Club Road; Amos Road was closed between Poheta Road and Country Club Road; and Solomon Road was closed from Poheta Road to Country Club Road.

Storm prompts calls

Salina Fire Department Battalion Chief Jim Weese said the department had responded to 23 storm-related calls by 4:30 p.m.

The calls were mostly reports of arcing power lines, blown transformers or electrical service boxes pulled off houses and smoking, he said. No actual fires had been reported, although Weese said problems could develop later as power is re-established.

Weese said several off-duty firefighters reported for duty following a funeral for a retired firefighter that preceded the storm.

"The preacher said, 'Amen,' and we ran to the trucks," he said. "Visibility was next to zero on the way back to the station."

Weese said the department would probably have had more calls if it hadn't been for the ice storm in December 2007 that pruned a lot of tree branches.

"That storm cleaned out so many branches it lessened the load today," he said.

Typical triage for utility companies is to repair the outages that will get the most people back in service the most quickly.

"Catching the onesies and twosies will take some time," Sydow said. "In Salina, too, we'll probably be going into Wednesday -- though I'm hoping to beat that."

To help with repairs, Westar has called in about 175 additional workers, including both private contractors and employees from other Westar divisions.

"We're trying to get damage assessment done today," Sydow said. "To be honest, I'm surprised we didn't get more damage than we did. It was like a hurricane out there."

Some weather, huh?

Indeed, it was a lot like a hurricane. A Category 1 hurricane has sustained winds of more than 75 mph, while the National Weather Service station at Salina Municipal Airport recorded a gust of 79 mph at 11:20 a.m.

Even horizontal rain eventually lands somewhere; the airport weather station also reported 1.48 inches fell during the hourlong storm -- though several area residents reported two inches or more.

Some Salinans reported receiving 2 inches of rain in just 15 minutes.

"Officially, it's 1.48 inches," Speaks said. "But when it's coming down sideways, how much gets in the rain gauge?"

Speaks said the rain was so heavy it confused his weather radar, which was interpreting the torrents as softball-size hail.

"Officially, that's all we have at this point," said Paul Howerton, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wichita, referring to the 1.48-inch figure.

But he said that based on storm spotter accounts from around the area, he wouldn't be surprised if final tallies gathered this morning showed more rain in some areas.

"It was definitely a strong storm," Howerton said. "It developed west of Russell and continued to strengthen as it went east. It continued across much of the state."

Those winds and rain at the airport prompted a Great Lakes Airlines passenger flight to return to the airport shortly after takeoff, said airport spokeswoman Melissa McCoy. The plane landed without incident, and passengers waited out the storm in the terminal.

Also at the airport, three privately leased hangars were "totaled," McCoy said, and a portion of Arnold Road was shut down because of wind damage. No aircraft were in the three hangars at the time of the storm.

Early Monday, Howerton said, forecasters had been predicting additional storms would organize in the afternoon, but the morning line of storms was so powerful, it left nothing but calm air and clear skies in its wake.

Communication problems

Salina Deputy Police Chief Carson Mansfield said one Salina police patrol car was flooded and will have to be repaired. He said water rose around the officer's car as he attempted to respond to a fire call.

"We can't shut down in big storms," Mansfield said.

Police also lost at least one radio channel during the storm; that channel was back in service by about 4:30 p.m.

"We have backup channels that we use -- we have backup communications in-depth," Mansfield said. "It just makes it more hectic."

Mansfield couldn't say exactly what caused the communications outage.

Electrical service to several cell-phone towers was also was cut during the storm, said Verizon spokeswoman Cheryl Armbrecht.

"We had a few sites operating on generators, but all sites were still operating," Armbrecht said. "It had a minimal impact on service. Generators will continue to operate until commercial power is restored."

nJournal reporter Erin Mathews contributed to this story.

n Reporter Mike Strand can be reached at 822-1418 or by e-mail at mstrand@salina.com.

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