Putnam County blacked out by overnight storms; La Salle, Bureau counties also see scattered damage

Putnam County was hit hard with straight-line winds Friday night into Saturday morning, leaving hundreds without power. There were, however, no injuries.

Most of the Illinois Valley was, and remains, under a wind advisory issued. Late Friday, the area was hit with storms that drenched the region into the wee hours Saturday.

The National Weather Service reported no evidence of any tornado, but the straight-line winds pounded Putnam County. At 7 a.m. Saturday, Corn Belt Energy reported 380 outages there, affecting three-quarters of its Putnam County customers. Ameren Illinois reported 847 customers without power near Hennepin.

Putnam County Sheriff Josh Boedigheimer reported numerous trees and limbs down, resulting in multiple power line and pole issues. Route 71 was closed from Holmes Road to Florid Road due to downed lines and poles.

“It was a mess,” Boedigheimer said. “It was a quick, powerful storm we had in the area.”

Was that the result of straight line winds or something worse? The National Weather Service couldn’t say. The Quad Cities office, which was collecting data from many Iowa and Illinois counties, reported Saturday they had no preliminary information on why the outages and tree damage occurred.

City and county officials had been braced for the possibility of wind damage, but most of those interviewed Saturday were heaving sighs of relief. Though Streator and the La Salle County panhandle were listed in a zone showing an elevated risk of storm damage, Streator Police Chief John Franklin reported no downed trees, flooding or outages.

“We had some heavy rain,” Franklin allowed, “but it wasn’t enough to disrupt things.”

La Salle and Bureau counties had fewer outages. Ameren Illinois reported at 7 a.m. nearly 400 without power mostly in Ottawa but also in Marseilles and Spring Valley. Corn Belt reported just 1% without power in those counties.

“We had a few spots where wires were down and that caused some outages,” Spring Valley Police Chief Adam Curran said. “One spot in particular was the Spring Valley curves where a tree and a power line were down which caused us to temporarily close off the road until the scene could be cleared.”

Ottawa Police Chief Mike Cheatham said he woke to a report of minimal damage – save for downed light pole, power line and a commercial awning –“but nothing significant as predicted.” Ameren was working on a downed line at Woodward Memorial and Clinton.

“It looks like we missed the brunt of the storm that went south of us,” Cheatham said.

Utica Fire Chief Ben Brown reported no damage within village limits though there were reports of poles and lines down in a field near the border of Waltham and Ophir townships. La Salle Fire Chief Jerry Janick said his first-responders were not dispatched to any storm-related scenes and he had no damage reports. Peru Fire Chief Jeff King said the city “fared well” during the overnight storms.

To hear one meteorologist tell it, Illinois Valley residents were fortunate this weather event happened at the tail end of winter.

Todd Kluber, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville said winds were clocked at 67 mph at the Peru airport. That would surely have caused more damage when the trees are in full bloom.

“One major difference this time of year as opposed to the summer is the leaves are not on the trees yet,” Kluber explained, “so we don’t see as much tree damage as when we do when there’s full leaf cover.”

La Salle-Peru appeared to fall within a sweet spot, insofar as more significant damage was reported to points south and north.

Kluber said there more pronounced damage was reported in eastern DeKalb and Kane counties, though the NWS had not yet ascertained whether the damage was from straight-line winds or tornadoes.