Update: River Falls area clobbered by another storm

• 1612 Golf View Dr.

Photo taken this morning in front of 1612 Golf View Drive - Marilyn Karras' residence, by Randy Morrow.
• Tree down at Cudd's Ct.

This tree was knocked down during Tuesday morning's storm at Cudd's Ct. near the roundabout at the intersection of Cemetery Rd. and Hwy. 65. Submitted photo.

Talk about it

June is living up to its reputation as the summer stormy season. Early morning Tuesday, June 19, another storm barreled through western Wisconsin, dumping heavy rain, some hail and triggering continuous lightning and thunder. City of River Falls warning sirens sounded at 4:50 a.m. Some trees and big branches were knocked down. Public Works crews are cleaning up the mess.

Most of the rain fell in the first 15 or 20 minutes of the storm. The rainfall total was a half inch.

The area hardest hit was Golfview Drive with many boulevard trees down. Another area with branches down was on the east side between Second and Eighth streets.

Public Works crews will do tree removal and branch cleanup on the boulevards, streets and city land.

Residents are asked to remove debris from their yards and take it to the city compost site by the school bus garage.

The city forester will keep a list of sites that lost trees along the right-of-way. Tree stumps will be pulverized and the area will be reseeded.

Damaged sites will be put on the replacement list and those areas will be replanted in the fall. Evidence of damage may not be readily

apparent.

If you see damage in the upcoming weeks, especially for safety issues, please call or e-mail the city forester at 715-426-3424 or tsteiner@rfcity.org.

The River Falls Fire Department and River Falls Ambulance were paged to N. 8753 County F for a possible house fire in the town of Clifton.

The residents had evacuated. Once on scene, the owner advised the house had been hit by lightning and the electrical system was out.

No smoke or flames were observed. The thermal camera was used to detect any hot spots. None were detected.

River Falls Municipal Utilities reported a tree tore down an overhead primary electric service in the Woodridge Area resulting in a power outage that has since been repaired.

Some secondary services were torn off houses as a result of strong winds. A Utility crew will continue to clean up branches on lines as calls come in.

The Wastewater Treatment Facility experienced a short power outage. Nothing was affected and everything is running normal.

The city’s water system is operating as normal.

The city’s parks are open and the recreation program is operating as normal.

Tuesday’s thunderstorm follows on the heels of a similar blast in the wee morning hours of Monday, June 18. That storm dropped .89 inches of rain and knocked down small branches around River Falls.

Last week Thursday storms dropped 1.76 inches of rain on River Falls with another .07 of an inch falling off and on through the day Saturday, June 16.

More stormy weather is predicted for tonight, June 19, after temperatures and humidity again soar during the day.

Tags: river falls, news, weather