Gov Branstad has issued proclamations of disaster emergency for 11 Iowa counties, including nearby Guthrie County, due to severe weather June 26-30, but Greene County had relatively little damage. Jefferson received 3.64 inches of rain, according to volunteer weather observer John Beltz. The highest wind gusts reported in Jefferson by KCCI’s SchoolNet observation system were 33 mph on Monday.
The most dramatic damage was done by rushing water and high winds Friday morning. According to Greene County emergency management director Dennis Morlan, two large cottonwood trees were washed out of the Raccoon River bank just upstream of the bridge across Grimmell Road, the Jackson Hill bridge.
The trees were too large to pass under the bridge. They damaged the railings on the bridge and blocked the roadway.
The bridge is within the Jefferson city limits but on a road considered as farm-to-market by the county. The Jefferson city crew and the Greene County secondary roads crew worked together to clear the debris from the bridge. According to Morlan, the city had the bridge inspected and damage was minimal. The county crew welded damaged places on the railings.
County engineer Wade Weiss on Monday morning briefed the county supervisors on the bridge. Weiss said “time hasn’t been gentle” with the bridge, and said that within the foreseeable future bridge work totaling about $1.8 million will be needed. That would include improvements to the bridge and to the guardrails and approaches.
Weiss is researching funding for such a project. He said the county secondary roads department has been part of road projects on farm-to-market roads within the city limits of Scranton and Churdan. “It’s not unreasonable to think we’d have some involvement on this one, too,” he said.
Morlan said power was out to the south and southwest portion of Jefferson briefly Friday morning, but Alliant Energy responded quickly and restored power.
The city of Scranton was hit hard by flooding over the Memorial Day weekend a year ago, but according to Morlan, he heard of no similar problems this time.
In Paton, strong winds Monday took down trees and scattered debris while the city’s one-man street department was on vacation. “People got out their chainsaws and their pickup trucks, and Bauers emptied a dump truck and sent it over, and by noon you wouldn’t have known anything happened,” Morlan said. “That’s how small towns work. Everyone pitches in and the job gets done.”
Churdan had a few minor power outages, including at the school Monday evening, but Morlan characterized them as “nothing of size.”
He also said a tree fell on the roof of the old brick school house at County Roads P-29 and E-18 between Paton and Churdan, and that there may have been minimal damage done to the roof.
Branstad issued proclamations of disaster emergency for Guthrie, Adair, Black Hawk, Iowa, Jackson, Johnson, Muscatine, Cedar, Jones, Linn and Louisa Counties.
