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Storm alters treescape, leaves 'what-ifs' in its wake

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Photo by Bill Olmsted

Rock County workers were called out on 07-11-11 to clear trees across roadways like this one that sealed off Townline Road near Newville Rd.

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Photo by Lukas Keapproth

Travis O'Connell begins the cleaning-up process after a severe storm early Monday morning uprooted a tree which collapsed an entire bedroom in the house on 231 South Main Street in Janesville.

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Photo by Bill Olmsted

A city of Janesville crew removed a treee that crashed across Beloit Ave. and blocked all four lanes just north of Conde St. in the storm.

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Severe weather 2011-12

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The difference between bad and tragic was slim for a downtown-Janesville family that lost part of its home in Monday morning’s storm.

If the storm had hit earlier, a husband and wife might have been in bed when a tree crushed the addition that formed the master bedroom.

If the winds had come at a slightly different angle, the tree would have taken the entire house down, said Travis O’Connell, who was managing the cleanup for his mother, Anda O’Connell, the owner of the property at 231 S. Main St.

Nobody was hurt, but removing and rebuilding the addition could cost in the $50,000 range, Travis guessed.

Winds approaching 70 mph felled trees and limbs by the thousands across southern Wisconsin as the storm moved through before 8 a.m., authorities reported. Tens of thousands of residents lost electric power.

Wind gusts reached 45 mph at the Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport in Janesville as the storm hit Janesville shortly after 7 a.m.

Wind speeds reached 68 mph in Brodhead and 48 mph in Evansville, said Rudy Schaar, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sullivan.

No injuries were immediately reported.

Resort suffers

In Walworth County, strong winds and driving rain guillotined 40 trees at the newly reopened Lake Lawn Resort, cut power to about 5,600 utility customers and flattened a barn near Darien, officials reported.

“A few buildings were damaged, but not seriously. It was quite a mess,” said Jim Drescher, a Lake Lawn owner. “The wind was so strong that pieces of trees stuck like arrows into other trees.”

Insurance does not cover much of the damage, according to the news release, but Lake Lawn still plans to open the guestroom portion of the resort by July 22.

Lake Lawn’s 18-hole golf course closed Monday but nine holes were expected to be open today. The resort’s bar and restaurant were set to reopen today.

Barn down

Wind blew down a barn at W9037 Creek Road in Darien in Walworth County shortly after 7 a.m., Elma Oberla said.

Oberla’s son, Dennis Truckenbrod, owns the barn.

Truckenbrod’s family lives next door to Oberla. The 1938 barn was mostly empty, except for a boat and a few other items.

Truckenbrod was on his way to work when his wife, Marlys, and their two teenagers, Dana and Neil, watched the barn sway until it collapsed.

Winds also lifted the roof off a 3-year-old county salt-storage building near the courthouse in Elkhorn, a county spokesman said. A portion of the roof collapsed into the building when the roof dropped back down.

On Whitewater Lake, water toys were strewn about and overturned by the high winds.

Authorities scramble

Fire and law enforcement agencies along with utility companies dealt with one call after another.

The Rock County Sheriff’s Office had received about 80 reports of hazardous conditions by 11 a.m., said Cmdr. Troy Knudson. Most were for trees and wires down.

Knudson said he received no reports of damage to buildings.

Much of the mess was expected to be cleared up Monday.

Janesville police had similar calls, with streets blocked in a number of spots across the city.

Ten trees toppled in the city of Delavan. One caused traffic to be re-routed through downtown neighborhoods, Police Chief Tim O’Neill said.

A downed tree crashed onto a parked car in the city of Lake Geneva, Police Chief Michael Rasmussen said.

Corn flattened

The storm transformed fields of standing corn into green leafy carpets throughout south-central Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

“There are areas where the corn is leaning, and areas were it’s laid down like a bunch of sticks,” said Jim Stute, UW Extension crops and soils agent.

Sometimes, corn can recover from storms without much damage, he said.

“I had sweet corn that was knocked flat in the storm last June, but it came right back,” Stute said.

But dry conditions and the relentless pressure of the wind might have broken stalks, Stute said.

Because of the nature of the storm and the variety of growing conditions throughout the county, farmers won’t know the nature of their losses until they get into their fields.

The rain, however, was welcome.

A drink for the land

Recordable rain hasn’t been registered in Janesville since June 27, and the last significant rain was on June 22, when it rained 0.09 inches, according to Gazette weather records.

Most of south-central Wisconsin received more than an inch of rain Monday, the weather service’s Schaar said.

The Janesville Wastewater Treatment Plant recorded 0.72 inches between Sunday morning and mid-afternoon Tuesday.

The Rock River rose about 4 inches between 1 p.m. Sunday and 1 p.m. Monday, according to the U.S. Geological Service gage in Afton. During the same time period, the Rock River in Indianford rose more than an inch.

Power out

Alliant Energy spokesman Steve Schultz said about 20,000 customers in Green, Rock and Walworth counties were without power at the height of the storm.

By 3:30 p.m. Monday, about 1,800 in Janesville and 400 in Beloit remained in the dark.

Alliant called in extra crews, but they were dealing with more than 260 different events. But progress was slow because many of the events dealt with two to six customers, Schultz said.

Schultz expected most would have power back by Monday night, but a few may not be restored until this morning, he said.

Rock Energy Cooperative reported that 2,000 customers lost power, most along the Wisconsin-Illinois border from Brodhead to Clinton. More than half of those were restored by 11 a.m. Monday

High winds broke off tree limbs and felled entire trees, which then took down power lines and some poles, according to a co-op news release.

The co-op expected power to be restored by early Monday evening if not sooner.

Alliant reported about 4,000 customers in Lake Geneva and near Elkhorn lost power.

About 1,300 We Energies customers in Whitewater and other parts of northern Walworth County also lost power, a spokesman said. Power was expected to be restored by today.

What’s next?

Cooler, drier weather is on the way. The National Weather Service on Monday predicted a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms today with a high of 83 and a low tonight around 60.

Wednesday’s high in Janesville was expected to be 77.

House crush reprise

As for the downtown Janesville house that was damaged Monday, the family has found a place to live and moved out most of its belongings, Travis O’Connell said.

The wife was home alone at the time of the damage. A daughter was at camp, and the husband had left for work, O’Connell said.

The wife saw the tree leaning on the house, but there was no sudden crash. She called her husband but couldn’t get through.

Neighbors saw the tree leaning, too, and called 911. Authorities didn’t want to brave the storm at that point, O’Connell said.

The tree fell in three stages, he said. First it leaned, then some of the bedroom ceiling fell in. At that point, the woman was just outside the bedroom. She was on the phone with her mother-in-law, who told her to get out. The tree finished crushing the bedroom after the woman left, O’Connell said.

Gazette reporters Shelly Birkelo, Darryl Enriquez, Cathy Idzerda and Frank Schultz contributed to this report.