Storm Leaves Trail Of Tree Destruction Across County

The sound of chainsaws echoed across the Glenwood community Saturday as residents began cleaning up tree branches, limbs and debris from a destructive storm that passed through Mills County late Friday night.

Bringing heavy rain, hail and wind gusts up to 70 miles per hour, the storm left a trail of destruction from Pacific Junction to Henderson. Uprooted trees, downed power lines and road signs were common across the path of the storm, with the city of Glenwood sustaining the most substantial damage.

“The initial focal point was here in Glenwood with everything that was observed, but Saturday and all of yesterday (Sunday), we started to get a better picture of the unincorporated areas. There is also a pretty good section of storm-related damage there, also,” said Mills County Emergency Management Director Travis Hitchcock. “It’s kind of a straight line from here in Glenwood to just south of Henderson. There’s a pretty good line of tree damage, wind-driven hail, high-wind damage – those kind of things.”

Damaged and uprooted trees were sprawled across the Glenwood landscape Saturday. An ongoing stream of vehicles passed through a tree debris disposal site established by the city at the baseball / softball field on South Vine Street. The site will be open for city residents through Friday, from 6:30 a.m. – 2 p.m., for the disposal of limbs and branches.

Power was lost for several hours at multiple locations in Glenwood, but Mid-American Energy crews had most customers back online Saturday morning.
Hitchcock said Silver City was clipped by the northern edge of the storm and sustained some damage.

“They had a handful of trees down there in the park,” he said. “We did have a couple streets blocked by fallen trees. When those come down, they seem to be really good about finding themselves the service entrances, the utility power, that kind of thing. A couple homes had limbs on them.”

Malvern was spared the brunt of the storm damage, but the community did experience power outages as a result of downed power lines and poles, including a stretch along Highway 275, between Highway 34 and Tabor. Highway 275 was closed for several hours.

“Malvern was impacted more so from a power standpoint and I do believe it has to do with the power poles, their infrastructure being down on Highway 275 from Highway 34,” said Hitchcock “I think it was roughly a mile of power poles down there and I think that was what had an impact on Malvern’s power infrastructure.

“They fared pretty well this time, where in years past, it always seemed Malvern was getting hit with some of those storms coming through.

Hitchcock had praise for the response of Mid-American Energy crews that worked through the night and Saturday to get power restored in the affected areas. At the peak of the outage, over 5,500 Mills County customers were without power.

“That’s a lot and I will say the work by Mid-American, they did a really good job getting after it,” he said. “They were bringing in resources and crews from all over. They were on it that night.”

Mills County fire departments were also kept busy responding to multiple calls during and after the storm. The Glenwood Fire Department noted in a Facebook post that personnel from the department responded to 50 calls over a 9-hour period.

Hitchcock added that while it appears the Malvern, Hastings and Emerson areas didn’t encounter the level of destruction felt in western and northeast Mills County, assessments were still being conducted of unincorporated areas of the county on Monday. Property owners are asked to report damage to the Mills County Emergency Management Office.

Hitchcock noted that no direct injuries were reported as a result of Friday night’s storm, but with warm and steamy weather conditions predicted this week, public safety should remain a top priority for residents as they continue to clean-up process.