By Lucky Kidd
High winds blasted through the McPherson area Wednesday evening as a line of storms moved through. A 74 mph wind gust was closed at 7:42 p.m. at McPherson Airport, and winds were estimated up to 80 mph east of McPherson by a trained spotter.
Part of the roof of a building along 17th Avenue between Limestone Road and US 56 was blown off, and there was some structural damage and large trees uprooted near 22nd and Eisenhower Road about five miles south-southeast of Galva. A semi was blown over on the northbound off-ramp at I-135 and US 56. Several reports of wind damage have been received by McPherson County Emergency Management from the east side of McPherson.
In Marion County, tree branches 2-5 inches in diameter were broken in Goessel, and multiple reports of downed trees and power lines were received in the northern part of Marion County.
High winds also flipped and destroyed a travel trailer and took down a power pole near Wells in Ottawa County and tree limbs were downed by 70 mph winds near Geneseo earlier in the evening.
The high winds caused significant power problems in the McPherson Area. The McPherson Board of Public Utilities reported about 9 p.m. they were estimating around 600 outages. This included a large part of south McPherson from Wall Park west to Chestnut south of Kansas Avenue, although power remained on in most of the downtown area. Most of these customers were expected to have power back overnight.
Another large outage was reported to the southwest of McPherson, where about two miles of line are down on the circuit feeding that area, including the Kicks 106.1 transmitter site west of Inman. Those customers may not see power restored until this evening.
If you are on BPU power, still have no power, and haven’t reported in, call BPU’s 24 outage line at 620-504-7300.
