Storms that ushered in the month of July shattered the record for rainfall in the Quad Cities, and left high water, downed trees and power outages behind.
MidAmerican Energy reported nearly 10,000 customers without power Tuesday morning, July 1, 2014, following storms the previous night. At the height of the outages, at about 11:45 p.m. Monday, about 28,000 local customers had lost electricity. Power outages were reported between Cordova and Coal Valley, and the outages were scattered from Illinois City and Blue Grass areas, east to Geneseo and Joslin.
The Illinois side of the Quad Cities was hard hit, with more than 1,000 customers without power Tuesday morning in the East Moline and Carbon Cliff areas. Outages affecting thousands more were scattered across Moline and Rock Island.
Davenport and Bettendorf residents also reported scattered power outages, with about 1,500 customers still without electricity Tuesday morning.
By 11 a.m. Tuesday, the outage number was reduced to about 6,400 customers without power. Crews responded from out-of-town locations to help restore electricity in and around the Quad Cities.
“We know that more and more will be coming back on throughout the day today,” said Ruth Comer, spokesperson for MidAmerican Energy.
About 3,300 customers were still without electricity at 3 p.m. according to the MidAmerican Energy website. Fewer than 1,700 customers were still without power just before 5 p.m., and about 1,000 of those outages were in Rock Island County.
Storm Track 8 Chief Meteorologist James Zahara says the June 30 rainfall set a new record that was previously set when 3.03 inches of rain fell in 1977. The new record was set with 5.11 inches of rainfall reported in 24 hours on June 30, 2014, at Quad City International Airport.
Download the free News 8 App – for iOS, click here and for Android, click here