By Estelle Johnson
Special correspondent to the Cedar Falls News Hub
City crews and residents have been busy cleaning the debris from severe storms that downed trees and branches, and is the cause of an electrical house fire on July 30.
According to the National Weather Service, Waterloo, as well as Spencer, located in Northwest Iowa, experienced the highest wind gusts of the storm, recorded at 92 mph.
Many residents, like Steve Carignan, who is the Associate Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Sciences at University of Northern Iowa, woke up in the dark, without power.
“We were surprised to see branches and limbs throughout the neighborhood, and some trees blocking roads and driveways,” said Carignan, who lives on Hampshire Road in Waterloo. “There was a tree leaning against power lines.”
Cedar Falls Fire Rescue extinguishes residential fire
Cedar Falls, Iowa — On July 30, at 1:59 a.m., the Black Hawk County Dispatch Center received a 911 call reporting a possible transformer on fire around the 1000 block of Bluff Street in Cedar Falls.
Responding public safety officers and firefighters arrived in the area and located a down tree that had fallen on a home’s electrical service drop. Firefighters located an active fire in an exterior wall of the residence, extending all the way to the roofline and into the bathroom of the home.
Firefighters quickly extinguished the fire and performed property conservation measures to prevent further damage to the home from the ongoing weather incidents.
The home sustained smoke, fire and water damage. The fire was confirmed to be related to the storms by Cedar Fall Fire Chief John Zolondek.
Cedar Falls Public Safety was assisted by Black Hawk County Dispatch and Cedar Falls Utilities employees.
Cedar Falls Utilities, MidAmerican power outages
Tiffany Bohlen, Marketing Specialist with Cedar Falls Utilities, said in a phone interview that approximately 800 CFU customers were without power at 1:00 a.m. on July 29.
“Our crews were dispatched as soon as it was safe to work,” said Bohlen. “ Within an hour and a half, we were able to restore service to 660 of those customers.”
By 4:10 a.m., all but 14 customers had power restored, and by 9:00 a.m., service was fully restored to all customers, according to Bohlen.
On July 30, there were fewer total outages reported by CFU customers. At 1:30 a.m., 35 customers lost power. There was a separate outage at 9:00 a.m., which affected 40 customers.
“All service was restored by 11:00 a.m.,” Bohlen said. “Storm-related outages like these are typically caused by strong winds blowing tree limbs into power lines.”
According to Iowa News Now, around 8,000 Black Hawk County MidAmerican customers were without power after storms rolled through on July 29. Around the state, more than 28,000 homes were left in the dark.
A Facebook post from MidAmerican Energy provided an update to their customers on July 29. “With more than 260 line personnel and 100 tree trimmers, our restoration team has been able to restore more than 28,000 customers impacted by last night’s storms.”
Cedar Falls Public Works Facebook live
A Facebook live video featuring Cedar Falls communication specialist, Amanda Huisman, and Brett Morris, Public Works and Parks Division Supervisor, provided an update on clean up progress in the morning of July 30.
“You will see piles in the parking, but we’re going around picking up, and that might take few days to be cleaned,” said Morris, in the Facebook live. “Just be patient as we get around the city.”
If residents notice downed tree limbs, they can call Cedar Falls Public Works at (319) 273-8629 Morris added, “Don’t hesitate to call in, and we’ll add it to our list.”