QUINCY, ILL. -- A year ago today, you were probably sitting in the dark house wondering how you were going to remove that huge tree that fell on your property.
That was a pretty common reaction to the colossal storm that went through the Tri-States in the late night hours of Sunday, June 26 and into the early morning hours on Monday, June 27.
The city of Quincy was put under a State of Emergency by Mayor John Spring that Monday as residents began clean up.
Tree limbs and tree trunks were flung everywhere as the powerful storm swept through the city. Many streets in the city were completely blocked off by hundred year old trees or downed power lines, which made for problems getting around.
Gary Sparks is the Director of Administrative Services and has lived in Quincy his entire life. He said he's never seen anything like it. He adds the city worked with other agencies to get power restored and to make sure the public was safe from downed power lines and hanging branches from trees.
"Just getting mobilized was probably our largest challenge at the time. But once we got things in place within a day or two, it seemed to pull together fairly quickly. I think our initial response was just to get the streets open so folks could get to work and we went to work with the initial cleanup," Sparks said.
One of the other areas that got slammed were all of the parks in Quincy. Rome Frericks is a maintenance supervisor with the Quincy Park District and he said at first it seemed overwhelming.
"So we cut our way in and it looked like a war zone. It was, we were in awe at first because we didn't know where to start and we all got together that morning with the city and everybody and just kind of came up with a game plan and marched forward," Frericks said.
Residents like Marge Blair didn't have a way to get around even when the streets were clear thanks to a tree that crashed through her garage smashing her car.
The National Weather Service reported on Tuesday, June 28 that a powerful complex of thunderstorms, known as a bow echo, had moved across Missouri and Illinois during the early morning hours of June 27, 2011.
The preliminary results of the NWS storm survey of the June 27th storms found two tornado tracks in Shelbina ... in southern Shelby County.
Places like Lewistown, Monroe City, Shelbina and many others had their own horrible wind damage to deal with. Take a look at some of the related links below to read more.
We were thinking about where we were this time last year. How about you? What were you doing? How bad was your damage? How did you spend the time with no electricity? You won't want to miss the conversation on our Facebook page here. You will definitely be able to relate!
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