Road crews working on downed trees
Photo courtesy Julie Rothenberg Theodosia city employees Eric Jeffery and Tim Anderson clear branches following a severe thunderstorm that downed several trees and knocked out power to hundreds of people in the west side of Ozark County on July 17.
County and area road crews were busy this past week clearing downed trees and tree limbs from roads and right-of-ways following a thunderstorm that packed winds of around 70 miles per hour.
The National Weather Service office in Springfield said it was straight-line winds, not a tornado, that downed trees and knocked out power to many in the Theodosia area on July 17.
Presiding County Commissioner Terry Newton said county road crews were busy early in the week clearing trees and limbs from county roads.
“They’re still coming down,” Newton said. “We had people calling in Friday about new trees down.”
Western District Commissioner Layne Nance said that he anticipates when another storm with winds comes through, more trees will be down. Nance said that they were delayed on removing some trees, as several trees were resting on downed power lines.
“We don’t touch them until they’ve [electric cooperative employees] been able to go in first,” he said.
White River Valley Electric Cooperative had hundreds of customers who were without power, some for more than 48 hours, following the Monday storm. Howell Oregon Electric Cooperative had about 200 members out from Vanzant, Tecumseh ato Eminence, a spokesperson said.
Cooling shelters were opened Tuesday in the area, including one at the Lutie School for residents who had no power as heat indices soared past the century mark.
Several businesses were closed immediately following the storm, including Lost Woods Golf Course, which had quite a bit of storm debris to clean up on the course.
All power had been restored to all Ozark County customers by Thursday of last week.
Nearly 3 inches of rain accompanied the storm, causing some localized flooding.