MOLINE, Ill. — Wednesday night's high winds caused over 3,000 people to lose power in the Quad Cities.
MidAmerican Energy Company reported outages to 1,561 customers on the Iowa side of the Quad Cities and 2,052 customers on the Illinois side as of 10:17 p.m. Wednesday.
At one point in Wednesday night, over 48,000 customers throughout Iowa were without power, according to MidAmerican Energy's report.
As of 6 a.m. Thursday, MidAmerican Energy reported just eight customers in the Iowa Quad Cities and 267 customers in the Illinois Quad Cities without power.
MidAmerican said the extensive damage caused by the number of trees, wires and transmission lines down will take an estimated 36 to 72 hours to fully restore.
MidAmerican Iowa power outages (as of 6 a.m.):
- Council Bluffs: 6,183 customers affected.
- Des Moines: 5,054 customers affected.
- Fort Dodge: 67 customers affected.
- Waterloo: 2,519 customers affected.
- Sioux City: 108 customers affected.
MidAmerican, in a Thursday morning news release, said they expect power to be restored to most in the Quad Cities area by noon and all by 6 p.m. Thursday.
Muscatine Power and Water also reported hundreds with electric and communication outages as of 10:38 p.m. Wednesday.
As of 6 a.m. Thursday morning, the number of Muscatine Power and Water customers reporting electricity outages was 58.
An official high of 75 degrees on Wednesday set an all-time record for December in the Quad Cities, breaking the previous high-point of 71 degrees on Dec. 4, 1998.
Wind gusts close to 70 mph were recorded on Wednesday.
A tornado watch was reported around 5:30 p.m. and in effect until 11 p.m.
A severe thunderstorm watch was also issued for parts of the area from 6 p.m. until midnight.
Weather sirens were turned on at about 9:20 p.m. in Moline.
Many on social media reported smelling smoke in the Iowa air, and the U.S. National Weather Service confirmed that the smell of smoke had traveled, with the help of Wednesday's strong winds, from wildfires ongoing across parts of Kansas.