County Emergency Management, Power Companies Respond to Storm Damage
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
While Kosciusko County escaped the brunt of the severe storms and tornados Sunday experienced by other towns like Kokomo, Ind., and Washington, Ill., many areas of the county did sustain damage. According to The National Weather Service storm damage feed, thunderstorm wind gust reached 60 mph. The highest recorded wind peaks for Warsaw were 32 mph at 10:55 p.m., and 47 mph at 4:55 p.m. There was extensive tree damage in North Webster and a tree was down south of Pierceton. East of Leesburg, pine trees were uprooted and tree tops were blown down. Five power poles were blown over. A 20-inch-diameter tree was blown down two miles north-northeast of Oswego, according to the feed. NWS meteorologist Katie Gross said the weather service has damage survey teams out investigating this morning and there is reported damage across the county. Final storm numbers, like wind speeds and rain amounts, will be available sometime this afternoon, she reported. Katy Berger, communication specialist with Kosciusko REMC, said at the peak KREMC had more than 5,000 customers without power. As of about 9 a.m. today, she said they had only 650 customers without power and that is “constantly dropping.” The majority of KREMC’s customers without power were in Kosciusko County, but they also serve customers in Fulton, Wabash and Whitley counties. She reported KREMC had 16 broken poles, which caused the majority of power outages. Crews worked through the night to restore power. “So to go from 5,000 to 650 is a huge decrease for us,” Berger stated. To help with the power outage, Berger said they have three additional crews from other cooperatives coming in this morning. She stressed that people should stay away from downed power lines. Even if the power is out in an area, she said that does not mean the power line isn’t energized. “So stay away from all down lines,” she said. NIPSCO Director of External Communications Nick Meyer said at its peak at one time, NIPSCO had more than 50,000 customers without power. A total of 75,000 customers service area-wide were affected by Sunday’s storms. As of about 10:10 a.m. today, he said about 10,500 customers were affected. The power outage was still widespread, especially in the area of Lake County and south of there. Current NIPSCO outages can be viewed online at nipsco.com/outagecenter or on mobile devices at mnipsco.com Meyer said the website has all the current information and people also can report outages through it. NIPSCO did call out for mutual aid Sunday to help with the power outage caused by the storm. “We have all of our available crews working plus surrounding (crews),” Meyer indicated. “All hands are on deck with the support of neighboring resources.” According to the last report Meyer had available, there were about 68 customers in Warsaw still affected, 634 in Syracuse and 569 in Silver Lake. However, those numbers were quickly decreasing as the day progressed. Kosciusko County Emergency Management Director Ed Rock was checking out the damage at the Pines subdivision, east of Leesburg and south of Oswego, CRs 450N and 250E at around 9:40 a.m. today. He said the roads were completely shut down, with seven power lines uprooted and laying across the roadway. Rock said it was one of areas he knew was hit, and he decided to take a look at it. A number of homes were hit by the storm, he said, with probably more than 10 damaged but none destroyed. He said damage was limited to tree branches on roofs and downed rain gutters. Rock also reported a barn was damaged south of Mentone on Ind. 19, and near Silver Lake, about 650 cows had to be moved out of a dairy farm so they could be milked today. He was going to investigate the scene later today. Bambi Roofing, Atwood, had a pole barn blown out, Rock reported, so it looked like two barns instead of one. He reported his department sent three damage assessment teams out last night, and most came back without much to report because it was too dark by the time they were sent out. Today, Rock said, his department is trying to find out what damage there is. If anyone has damage, he asked that they call 574-267-7888 and report it. Even if they don’t talk to a person, he said they should leave their name and address at that number. “I will be able to check their damage and see if I will be able to give them any support,” Rock said. He was confident, however, that Kosciusko County wouldn’t have enough uninsured damage to submit a disaster declaration to the state. That’s based on per-capita numbers, which Rock estimated to be about $260,000 of uninsured damage. The state has to have about $7 million in uninsured damage to get assistance from FEMA. “Until I know what the damage is, I won’t know where we stand,” Rock said. He said his department goes through training and has damage assessment teams for events like yesterday, but they try to push people to be prepared themselves. There are about 77,000 people in the county and there’s no way his department can take care of all of them, he said. Since you can’t stop a storm, his department deals with it after the fact. “We work with emergency responders so they’re well trained and they know how to react to it,” Rock said. To his knowledge, he said there were no significant injuries or deaths from the storm.
