MOUNT VERNON – Cleanup remains underway after city crews already worked 38 hours of overtime last week handling the aftermath of a storm that felled trees and cut power to thousands of residents.
A severe thunderstorm accompanied by 75 mph winds and an EF-1 tornado hit Knox County just before midnight on June 13, with many trees downed, causing power outages and damage to structures, the Knox County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) reported. More than 20,000 Knox County customers were without power the next afternoon. As of noon on Monday, three power outages remained.
“We brought our crews in at 1:30 in the morning on Tuesday to start opening up roads and assessing the damage,” Mayor Matt Starr told the Mount Vernon News.
He said brush removal would continue through the week.
“Right now, we're doing a lot of wood chipping with the brush that we were able to get as long as there were no power lines down or trees on top of power lines,” Starr said.
The city listed on its Facebook page 45 downed trees blocking roads
He said it “looks like a war zone through here.”
The Knox County EOC reported that an EF-1 tornado touched down in Chesterville and continued for 7.1 miles southeast into Knox County.
Fire Department cools off kids at Riverside
The Mount Vernon Fire Department kicked in a bit of fun at Riverside Park on Thursday afternoon by creating a sprinkler with a fire hose using fire trucks.
“We had the big hose, and it was just shooting it way up in the air and kids running underneath it and screaming and hollering and having fun, so that was fun,” Starr said.
The Fire Department also put a spigot on a fire hydrant over the weekend behind the fire station at the corner of West Ohio Avenue and Mechanic Street so anyone who needed water or couldn’t get fresh water could use it.
“That's just something we wanted to make sure that people had access to,” he said.
Heat brings out residents to water park
The water park has been just packed with patrons,
On one of the days, it drew close to 1,500 people in attendance. Anytime the temperature rises, attendance goes up, Starr said.
Contractor starts parking garage work
The city’s contractor was starting work in the Municipal Parking Garage in downtown Mount Vernon.
“They're going to start on the lower level, and we'll see how we'll see about how long it's going to take,” Starr said.
He said the city is not in a hurry because officials want to make sure the steel beams are properly installed to shore up the parking garage.
