By BRIAN LEAHY
of The Gazette
The impacts of Monday night's powerful storm will continue to be felt long after the last toppled tree is cut up for firewood.
An initial estimate is the storm caused $2 million worth of damage countywide, said Sandra Curtis, Portage County Emergency Management director. The county could be declared a disaster area.
"A lot of the damage happened to crops and there is kind of a ripple effect," Curtis said.
With waterlogged soils, yields may be reduced, Curtis said. Farmers who lost electrical power may be unable to get water to their livestock, which could lead to losses from the heat. A reported 25-30 center pivot irrigation rigs were damaged by the storm.
The skies darkened about an hour before dusk Monday in Stevens Point as the storm hit and dumped 2.47 inches of rain in the city.
A tornado warning was issued during the storm, but so far National Weather Service personnel haven't found any evidence of twisting winds associated with tornadoes, Curtis said.
"They were estimating somewhere between 75 and 100 mph winds, just straight-line winds," Curtis said.
Much of the wind damage happened in the southern part of the county, almost in a straight line between Kellner and the village of Almond, Curtis said. Pockets of the villages of Whiting and Plover also reported heavy wind damage.
The village of Almond appeared to bear the brunt of Monday night's storm.
Few yards in the village were spared damage as the storm ripped trees out of the ground or snapped them off above ground. Damage to residences from falling trees appeared to be minimal, but yards were a mess with leaves, downed branches or trees.
Trees blocked roads and driveways, leaving residents stranded or delayed. Because of the problem, Almond Fire Chief Dan Folan issued a call for any volunteer firefighters with chain saws to come to the village to assist with clearing trees from roads in the area.
Electrical power was also cut off in the village and surrounding area, with some residents hoping to have their electricity restored by the weekend. Wisconsin Public Service and Alliant Energy crews were working in the village to restore power, but a number of lines remained down on Wednesday afternoon.
The Stevens Point armory of the Wisconsin Army National Guard provided two 400-gallon water tankers, one at Swan Oil in Almond and the other in Bancroft for residents of the area who were without electricity for their water pumps to work.
Power has been restored to a couple of mainlines in Almond, allowing people to use the school for restrooms and showers, Curtis said.
"Those people are very self-sufficient. They have not asked for much," she said.
Ameritech, the telephone service provider in much of the county, told Stevens Point officials that it had received reports of 152 telephone customers without service on Tuesday and the number grew to 190 on Wednesday.
The Portage County Chapter of the American Red Cross operated a mass feeding facility Tuesday at the Bancroft elementary school, said Mandy Easterday, the chapter's community program specialist. Between 5 and 9:30 p.m. the facility gave out more than 200 meals to people unable to cook in their homes and to workers cleaning up debris. The Stevens Point Holiday Inn and McDonald's Restaurant in Plover donated food. A mobile feeding unit was to provide food, donated from Copps Food Center on Highway 10 East, to emergency workers in the Almond area on Wednesday.
"There's a lot of damage, but it didn't seem like anyone was displaced from their homes," Easterday said.
The storm knocked the top 30-feet off a communications tower in Almond that law enforcement and emergency services personnel use to communicate in the southern part of the county, Curtis said. The tower will take two weeks to repair. The county dispatch center uses the tower to page firefighters in the area, so while the tower is off-line dispatchers will use a telephone call list to contact emergency personnel. Dispatchers will also try paging off the Plover tower, which can sometimes reach the area.
Monday's storm was another blow to area farmers contending with unfavorable growing conditions this season.
"Dairy farms west of the (Wisconsin) River, they've been so wet this year," said Timothy Connell, county University of Wisconsin-Extension agriculture agent. "A lot of their corn plantings probably won't happen this year, it's been so wet."
Added to wet weather keeping them from harvesting hay, some dairy farmers may have to buy feed later this year, Connell said. Vegetable farmers will have the added cost of repairing damaged irrigation rigs.
"With the wind damage and cool, wet weather earlier, we will probably have higher incidents of diseases across all crops," Connell said.
All the rain has saturated soils, making it easier for trees to topple in the wind, Connell said. Homeowners are also seeing more root rot on their trees and shrubs.
"It's not just agriculture. Everyone is being impacted," Connell said.
Curtis said the $2 million damage estimate could change as she gets more damage information from town and village officials. Besides the damage to crops, the estimate includes the costs to clear debris and repair damaged roads and buildings.