Big thunderstorm slams into Monroe County, knocks out power to 45K electric utility customers
Around 4 p.m. on Tuesday, a thunderstorm packing winds that were reported to the National Weather Service as gusting up to 78 mph smacked into Monroe County from the west.
The storm left at least 45,000 electric utilities customers without power, once the nearly 2,000 South Central Indiana REMC ratepayers were added to the 43,000 Duke Energy customers who were disconnected.
As of 8:20 p.m. The B Square was not able to find any areas on Duke Energy’s outage map that showed estimates for the time when power would be restored. [Updated: As of 10:30 a.m. on June 26, 2024 the word from Duke Energy is that they are still assessing damage and should have more information later in the day.]
The two-block stretch between Bloomington’s city hall and the Monroe County courthouse in downtown Bloomington showed clear evidence of the storm’s impact.
Blown over was a circular metal picnic table with its awning, which was sitting on Fernandez Plaza in front of the city hall building on Morton Street.
At the corner of Morton and 6th streets, the metal skeleton for the Janko’s Little Zagreb awning was blown into into a twisted wreck.
Halfway up the hill to College Avenue, a big littleleaf linden tree had toppled cleanly out of its tree plot in the sidewalk onto the roof of Ashton Gipson’s SUV, which was parked on the street.
Gipson oversees events and catering for Finney Hospitality (Smokeworks, Yogi’s, The Tap, and Social Cantina).
The tree plot in the sidewalk did not look like it had given the tree enough space to grow a robust root system to hold it upright. Last fall, expanding the size of tree plots when new trees are planted was a part of the city’s approach to installing new trees in the downtown area.
Farther up 6th Street around the corner at College, an American linden had split off about mid-block between 6th Street and Kirkwood Avenue. It blocked two lanes of traffic on College Avenue.
Presiding over the Monroe County council’s meeting, which started at 5 p.m. council president Trent Deckard recognized that most people were not watching the council’s meeting on CATS TV as they were trying to recover from the storm.
Still, Deckard encouraged people to look out for each other. “Please be gentle on each other out there, particularly our workers trying to restore roads, our law enforcement officers trying to respond, first responders. Please be gentle with all of them out there, and be safe. Look out for each other.”
By the time the county council’s meeting concluded around 8 p.m., the downed linden trees near the courthouse square had been cleared by city crews.
Power stayed on at the county courthouse where the county council was meeting, but the HVAC system was knocked out. The windows to the Nat U. Hill Room, where the council convenes its meetings, were opened up to relieve the heat.
Around 6:15 p.m. the Monroe County emergency management department sent out a text alert: “A Travel Advisory has been issued for Monroe County due to heavy road congestion. Some roads may be impassable or closed due to debris.”
The Google Maps traffic layer confirmed several spots with red and dark yellow on roads, indicating very slow or stopped traffic.
One of the places where traffic was stalled was for a good stretch east of the intersection of I-69 and SR 45/46, headed towards Indiana University Memorial Stadium. The stadium is where Duke Energy was planning to set up a staging areas for some of its crews.
Liz Irwin, who is the government and community relations manager for Duke Energy, responded to an emailed B Square question around 6:20 p.m., by writing, “We are responding where conditions allow and will provide additional updates on restoration as damage assessment occurs.”
Irwin wrote, “The storm has uprooted trees, damaged power lines, poles and other electrical equipment.” She added, “ Bloomington, Terre Haute and Sullivan are among the hardest hit areas.”
Late June has now given Monroe County some rough weather for two years in a row.
Tuesday’s storm came four days shy of a year after a derecho hit Monroe County, knocking out a government meeting. It required days to recover.
