Overnight Severe Storms Cause Some Damage, Power Loss in Fairbury and Beatrice

BEATRICE – Utility crews were working on restoring electricity to Fairbury this morning. Power outages occurred with overnight strong thunderstorms, packing wind gusts of 60-to-70 miles-per-hour.

"It's a sizable area. There were some parts of Fairbury that still had power through the night. Power crews across the area are still working this morning trying to get folks back on. A lot of big branches, trees down, poles....the 65-mile-per-hour wind that we measured, in some places probably more, did some damage".

John McKee is Emergency Management Coordinator for Jefferson and Saline Counties. Power outages were also reported in Crete.
McKee said there was one report of some structural damage in Fairbury.
"I've only been contacted by one that has told me that they had a large tree fall on their deck, and that they had water coming into their kitchen".
McKee says Fairbury received just under 70-hundreths of an inch of rain from the storm line, but some areas of northwest Jefferson County likely received more than that.

He said in rural areas, a lot of corn was leaning from the strong winds, but fortunately, there were few reports of hail.

The National Weather Service warned of likely damage with the passage of a severe line of storms overnight, but the Beatrice area fared well.
Mayor Stan Wirth said the fast-moving system dropped some much-needed rain, but also caused a power outage that affected a portion of northeast Beatrice.
"There was a couple of large trees that did fall victim to the wind last night, and some power lines in that area were downed. At 19th and Hoyt Street, the power station went out because of a couple trees that went down, and it did affect the area just to the west and south of that location. Some 25 to 30 residents were affected by that".

A tree that came down near Lincoln Elementary caused a power loss for neighbors in that area. Power was restored to most all areas early today.
"...with the exception of those where maybe some trees pulled down the entrance to people's homes".

Wind gusts from the storm knocked down several small branches across the community, but no structural damage to buildings has been reported.
Gage, Saline, Jefferson and Lancaster Counties were among several under severe thunderstorm warnings, overnight.