A severe storm hit the area early Friday morning. Winds were registered as high as 96 mph at city’s water and water reclamation plant. At left and above, volunteers start to clean up the damage at the Rochelle Country Club about 8:30 a.m. on Friday. (Photos by Mary Ellen Taylor)

ROCHELLE — Midnight Friday began the witching hour for Rochelle residents as gusty winds snapped trees, downed power lines, blew off roofs and generally wrecked havoc for area residents and businesses.

“We have weather service equipment that registers wind – it’s non-official - but at 12:02 (a.m. Friday) it registered a 96 mph gust,” said Kathy Cooper, Superintendent of Rochelle’s Water/Water Reclamation Division. “We were without electrical power for a short period of time, but had someone on duty to make sure we didn’t lose too much pressure and we did well.”

At 12:15 a.m. Friday, the Rochelle Fire Department received its first of eight calls that all came in within 15 minutes of each other.

Two of the calls were accidents, a semi-trailer truck blown over on I-39 (non-injury) and a single vehicle accident on Jones Road and Ninth Street, which required transport of the driver to Rochelle Community Hospital.

The remaining calls involved downed power lines and electrical arcing that resulted in three tree fires.

“We called in all off-duty personnel and paid on-calls due to the extreme call volume. Everybody handled it within two hours – a job well done,” said Rochelle Fire Chief Tom McDermitt.

The Rochelle Police Department experienced a multitude of calls as well.



“The officers were certainly busy starting around midnight. We had 18 calls for wires/trees down, four assist Fire Department calls (reports of trees/buildings on fire), and a few damage to property calls as a result of trees falling on vehicles,” said Deputy Chief Eric Higby. “Of these calls, eight of them came in via 9-1-1. In addition to the weather-related calls for service, there were other calls to handle, including a traffic crash that resulted in a D.U.I. arrest.”

Rochelle Municipal Utility crews faced a long evening of repairs as they worked to restore power to their customers. RMU officials estimate eight to 10 broken poles in its system in addition to numerous lines down due to falling limbs and trees.

“I’m really pleased with the work the RMU crews have done – they’ve worked very hard since 12:30 a.m. this (Friday) morning. They did a great job despite the conditions last night,” said Gary Larsen, RMU General Manager. “We realized early on that we wouldn’t be able to handle so many emergencies all at once on our own. We contacted Asplundh to help with the trees and also the City of Rock Falls whose crews gave us a hand with a couple of poles in an effort to get service back to our customers as soon as possible.”

RMU has developed individual mutual aid agreements with other communities and also participates in the Illinois Municipal Utility Association to help each other restore power to customers as quickly as possible.

“We helped Batavia and Geneva last August when they were having flooding problems. In this case they were hit equally hard, so we called our neighbors to the west and they were able to work with us,” Larsen said.

The area in and around the Rochelle Country Club on South Seventh Street appeared to be the hardest hit by the strong winds. Sean McAdams Dodge City, 981 S. Seventh St., lost the roof of the dealership building in the storm and the Rochelle Country Club sustained extensive damage to its golf and tennis courts and swimming pool.

“We had close to a dozen big trees down and between 20 and 30 small trees, but no structural damage to the club house or pro shop,” said Zak Valentine, Rochelle Country Club golf pro. “It will probably be a least a couple of days before we get some holes open for people to play – it depends on what we can accomplish today (Friday). The best guess would be maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. A lot of volunteers came out to help clean up and that’s been real positive.”

City crews and residents throughout the city all pitched in to pick up the pieces Friday morning.

“The south side really took the brunt of it. City crews were out very early this morning making the streets passable and restoring power. We’ll be working as long as it takes to get the job done and get back to normal,” said Rochelle Mayor Chet Olson. “A lot of citizens are chipping with volunteers and businesses are loaning chain saws – people are coming together to help with the efforts.”

Street department personnel got an early start on their Friday morning.

“Crews were called in around 1 a.m. for a number of tree and limb damage. The worst was focused on the south side with the Cleveland Addition, Country Club and the Southeast Quadrant for the majority of damage,” said Don Elliott, Superintendent of Streets, Cemetery and Airport. “We’ve been moving limbs and debris out of the roadways and assisting home owners removing the larger trees and limbs from their front yards, driveways and sidewalk areas. Crews will be working into the evening tonight (Friday) and on Saturday cutting and picking up as much as we can to assist home owners.”

Rochelle area parks sustained their share of destruction as well.

“We got considerable damage at V.F.W. and Memorial parks, but not like the country club,” said Steve Liezert, Executive Director of Flagg-Rochelle Park District. “Spring Lake had a lot of debris in the pool, but we should have it cleaned up and able to open on time at 12:30 today (Friday).”