Derecho winds bring damage

Posted 5/12/20

Derecho winds bring damage By Scott Pearson Associate Editor An uncommon weather event, known as a derecho, carried straight-line winds of up to 70 miles per hour, uninterrupted from Kansas through the southeast on Sunday afternoon, leaving damage and power outages in its wake...

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Derecho winds bring damage

Posted

Derecho winds bring damage

By Scott Pearson

Associate Editor

An uncommon weather event, known as a derecho, carried straight-line winds of up to 70 miles per hour, uninterrupted from Kansas through the southeast on Sunday afternoon, leaving damage and power outages in its wake.

“It was quite the event,” said Kevin Calahan, assistant director of the Office of Emergency Management.

He said that just about every emergency department and utility in the county was involved in cleaning up the damage, including 21 power line or electrical substation interruptions, 68 trees reported down on roads, and four different intersections where traffic lights blew down.

The weather station on Fire Tower Hill recorded 50 mile per hour winds, but Calahan said that wind speeds were higher at lower elevations.

Monday the sound of chainsaws were a constant background as cleanup efforts took place, including at Henry Horton State Park, which lost several trees to the wind.

Several structures from one end of the county to the other faced roof damage from winds or falling trees.

The wind stripped a large section of the roof off of the Mansard House apartment building in Lewisburg. The Red Cross put residents up in local hotels while the damage was being assessed.

Monday evening saw another sharp line of storms bring strong winds, hail, and even more rain to the county. That system was pulled along by the previous day’s derecho, an even more uncommon meteorological phenomenon known as a wake low.

Tribune photo by Scott Pearson

Mansard House in Lewisburg lost a good bit of its roof in the derecho Sunday afternoon. Residents were provided emergency housing through the American Red Cross, until they could make other temporary arrangements.