Severe weather season is back as Mother Nature made her presence known on Sunday evening, producing large storms that brought tornadic activity to the Panhandle.
The storm hit southern Sheridan County, striking into Grant County as well, snapping power poles and toppling a BNSF train near Bingham, all on Sunday evening.
Kendall Sloan, with BNSF Media explained that the derailment occurred at approximately 6:15 p.m. MST after a tornado was reported near Ashby.
“The incident caused multiple empty rail cars to derail,” said Sloan. “Fortunately, there were no injuries to the crew. Cleanup operations are currently underway. Main track one has been cleared and is back open for service. Main track two is estimated to open later this afternoon (Monday).”
John Stoppkotte, Meteorologist with the National Weather Service in North Platte explained that they have received numerous reports of tornadoes produced by the storm, noting that they are surveying the area to determine the exact number.
“We currently have a survey team up in the area of Garden, Sheridan, Grant and Sheridan Counties right now,” said Stoppkotte. “We had multiple reports of tornadoes, so the job of the survey team is to do the work to find out which of those might have been the same reports or whether they are individual tracks, or what. We did have numerous reports of very large tornadoes at times.
“We do have preliminary reports from the survey teams up there of EF-2 damage to a ranch that was damaged up there,” Stoppkotte said. “There is some tree damage further east. The work is ongoing to investigate where all the damage occurred.”
Zac Bryant, General Manager at PREMA explained that crews have been hard at work since Sunday night to restore power in areas affected by the storm. He noted that there has been no effect seen in Box Butte County.
“We’re working on restoring power today (Monday),” said Bryant. “We have maybe 70 poles on the ground that we know of. We’re just working in that Bingham, Ashby area to restore a lot of that. Last night was a lot of moving some of the lines off the highway and the railroad tracks so we could clear that and get it out of everybody’s way. We did bring in a crew from Roosevelt out of Scottsbluff to help us with that.”
PREMA’s neighbors have pitched in to offer help, Bryant said, noting that it has been a united effort to help restore power.
“We’ve had a lot of our neighbors reach out to offer us help,” Bryant said. “We have several others on standby. We have a good inventory of materials, so materials aren’t an issue right now. We rely a lot on our neighbors, we help them. Everybody works together, so we have a lot of helping hands out there. Some of the ones helping us are the ones we were helping about a year ago this same time down around the Scottsbluff area. They were eager to come up and give us a hand.”
Bryant emphasized the importance of safety when it comes to downed power lines, noting that people should report them right away and to not go near them.
“We really want to reiterate that if there are lines or poles on the ground, to report them and to not cross them, to stay clear, because it doesn’t mean that they’re off,” Bryant said. “Those using generators, it’s important that they have a proper disconnect so they don’t generate electricity back onto the line, which is a concern, that they’re installed the right way by somebody certified to install them.”
Stoppkotte explained that a cold front in the area is the culprit behind the severe weather, noting that as the cold front leaves, warmer temperatures and milder weather is expected this week.
“Once the cold front passes later today and tonight (Monday) we should have a little bit quieter conditions,” said Stoppkotte. “There may be a little bit more chance as another system comes through Wednesday evening into Thursday. For the most part, a little bit quieter after that.”