 Even though there were heavy rains, some areas of high winds and
lightning, the county was mostly spared damage, and it could have
been much worse.
The squall line coming up out of the southwest, stretching
several states long, developed strong rotation as it passed over
southern Logan County at about 5:45 p.m. It was lucky that it didn't
drop down any lower than it did or reach the ground, emergency
management director Dan Fulscher said this morning.
"There were over 11 miles of rotation over southern Logan
County," Fulscher said. The systems that cause the worst storms are
the ones that track northeast like this one did last night, he
said. Hooks are a serious rotation condition. Hooks are created when
there is an abrupt change in the wind direction. As the system
tracked over southern Logan County, the movement changed from
northeast to east in several places, creating a number of hooks.
Latham had the highest reported winds clocked, at over 60 mph.
Other parts of the county had 30 to 35 mph winds.
Hit hardest were Cornland and Latham in the southeast part of
the county. In Latham the old high school, which is now an apartment
building, had 1 1/2 feet of water. The lower apartments were evacuated,
and the Red Cross is there assisting residents.
Between 3 and 3.3 inches of rain was reported in various areas of
the county, with extreme south and north most affected.
Illinois Route 121 had water flowing over it in various areas. A
number of county roads and city streets flooded. Street workers and
officers slogged through floodwaters to remove debris that was
clogging drains of main streets. Kickapoo Creek was flooding
Lawndale.
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The National Weather Service is monitoring creek levels. Kickapoo
Creek is rising from 7 feet and expected to crest in flood stage at
14 feet. Salt Creek is rising from 14.2 feet and is expected to
crest at 21 feet. Between 22 and 22.4 feet is when Lincoln Lakes would
need to be evacuated. Fulscher said that they would be keeping a
close eye out there.
There were several widespread areas of power outages throughout
the evening. They included Elkhart, Cornland, Beason, Mount Pulaski,
Beason, north of Lincoln and a few sporadic locations in Lincoln. No
power was reported to be out yet this morning.
Fulscher said that a number of county's secondary roads are
flooded now, and more could flood later as creeks continue to rise.
He recommends that drivers be extra cautious, especially after dark.
No rain is forecast for the next few days. Today is expected to
reach 65 degrees, becoming sunny and breezy, with 17 to 21 mph winds out of the
northwest and gusts up to 30 mph.
[See
the NWS forecast for this week.]
[By
JAN YOUNGQUIST]
 |
