(Photos by Brady Bauman)
UPDATED: Tuesday, 10:39 a.m.
The number of City of Winfield customers still without power has decreased to 270, according to the latest update from the City Monday night at 8 p.m.
The added in the update that outside roofing and tree clean up companies may be coming to Winfield.
“This is a time when scammers prey upon homeowners,” the city cautioned. “Remember that the state requires roofers to be licensed and only licensed roofers can perform roof repairs in the City. Tree crews must also be licensed with the City.”
From Monday:
The City of Winfield says 350 more customers have regained power as of noon Monday following Saturday’s pop-up storm that ravaged the area with straight-line winds estimated at 80 mph around 6 a.m. that morning.
The storm’s aftermath left a debris field akin to a hurricane: fallen tree limbs, large trees uprooted, property damage and downed power lines.
The Cowley County Fair at the Winfield Fairgrounds looked like a small tornado went through. Campers were destroyed and one boy had to be cut out due to a tree going through it and blocking the door. The midway saw vendor booths trashed and scattered. 4-Hers saw materials scattered and poultry cages were blown over, killing one entry after two others died previously due to heat exhaustion. The Ferris wheel was blown over and totaled.
While the Figure 8 races were canceled Saturday night, enough power was restored and clean-up efforts were successful for the fair to resume.
Overall, no human injuries were reported via the storm Saturday.
Jesse Cragg of Junction City camped at the fairgrounds to see Jason Boland and Stoney LaRue with his wife.
He said it was experience he and his wife will never forget as they braced for the worst Saturday morning. At one point he thought the camper had lifted off the ground.
“If I wasn’t still hooked up to our truck, I’m pretty sure we would’ve been knocked over,” he said.
A jack underneath Cragg’s camper was bent due the storm, but held.
Monday morning Winfield City Manager Taggart Wall told Bob FM there were as many as 4,000 customers without power after the storm hit and estimates that number has been reduced to under 1,000.
The city said in its noon update the hardest hit areas were 11th and 12th between Bliss and Mound, 12th and 13th north of Cherry Street Park and 14th and 15th between Bliss and John streets.
The city expects service to be restored to the Poplar and Lowry streets areas around 1 p.m.
Also hard hit was Island Park and the Aquatic Center. The park, along with the Broadway Sports Complex, are closed until further announcement, the city stated.
The Winfield Aquatic Center had just one remaining open weekend for the season and the city decided to close it for the season due to depleted chlorine levels from lack of power to run the pumps.
The city has received outside help from the City of Augusta and the City of Pratt to aid in power restoration and clean-up.
Wall said the challenge with this storm was how widespread and severe the wind damage was.
“Early on, starting at around 6:30-7 o’clock on Saturday morning, the very first step has to be damage assessment,” Wall said. “Where are we? What do things look like? Do we have any injuries? How do we triage that from a safety standpoint? What does the infrastructure look like? How do we buttress the main infrastructure and ensure that it’s able to continue forward, and then we had to move forward from there.”
Wall said customers with damage from the power pole to the house will need a licensed electrician and cautioned that may take more time. He estimated that circumstance encompasses roughly 300 customers.
Wall said the other wrinkle early on Saturday was a forecast that predicted another round storms with 75 mph+ winds for that night. Thankfully, that forecast came up empty.
“That did cause some complications and impacted the way we had to respond on Saturday,” Wall added.
The city announced Monday afternoon Cowley County Emergency Management has been assisting and Cowley County issued a disaster declaration for this event.
Any damage reports or pictures of damage can be sent to [email protected].
“We have begun the FEMA compilation process for damages from this storm,” the city stated. “We do not have a preliminary estimated cost at this time.”
