MidAmerican Energy photo

(Radio Iowa) – Powerful thunderstorms with intense winds and a possible tornado thrashed across the Davenport area last (Tuesday) night, toppling trees and snapping several dozen utility poles. There are no reports of any serious injuries. MidAmerican Energy spokesman Geoff Greenwood says many thousands of homes and businesses across the Quad Cities were left in the dark. “At its peak, we had about 21,800 customers out, mostly in Illinois, though we had some on the Iowa side and we restored most of those customers overnight,” Greenwood says, “however, we still have a few thousand that we’re working on and those are the customers where it’s going to take a little bit more time.” That’s because the areas are hard to access, like in hilly backyards that are full of trees.

MidAmerican Energy photo

While much of Iowa just had showers on Tuesday, the storms gained strength as they approached the Quad Cities. “We just had very strong winds that went through the area. In some cases, they just felled trees and the trees took down our power poles and took down the lines,” Greenwood says. “We have counted at least 40 poles that are down and that count is still growing.” Given the extent of the damage and outages, the utility dispatched crews from Des Moines, Fort Dodge, Waterloo and Iowa City to join crews from the Davenport area in the response. “We had more than 75 line workers out in the field overnight, along with more than 70 tree crews,” Greenwood says. “In some cases, we needed those tree crews to clear areas to enable our line crews to do their work safely.”

Most Quad Cities customers had their power restored quickly, though others will need to be patient.”We’re working really hard to get those customers on,” Greenwood says. “We expect to have most of them restored by some time today. It could be into tonight, so most customers will be back throughout the day.”

The Davenport office of the National Weather Service had reports of more than three inches of rainfall in some areas as well as wind gusts of up to 72 miles an hour.