EF1 tornado rips through McGregor, straight line winds leave damage in Prairie du Chien, Bridgeport

By Correne Martin, Audrey Posten and Ted Pennekamp

A confirmed EF1 tornado, with winds up to 110 mph, ripped through the small, historical river town of McGregor, Wednesday, July 19, around 6:15 p.m., devastating buildings, snapping trees and blowing debris, as it severely changed the community’s downtown landscape indefinitely. No one was killed in the storm, though one man died during clean-up efforts on his own farm, according to Clayton County authorities.

Once the storm, which included plenty of hard-driving rain too, ravaged McGregor, it crossed the Mississippi River into the south end of Prairie du Chien, at the boundary with Bridgeport. There, weaker straight line winds, as National Weather Service officials are saying, wiped out more structures, tipped campers and left behind days’ worth of damage to clear for businesses and residents.

According to National Weather Service Warning and Coordination Meteorologist Todd Shea, of the NWS, preliminary estimates determined the tornado was a high-end EF1, and that is how it’s been recorded, though he said it may have been a low-end EF2.

“Based on what we can tell, the tornado started to develop a couple miles west of town, not too far from Highway 18,” Shea detailed. “It intensified as it dropped into the valley, into McGregor.”

For those in McGregor, the storm’s onset—and strength—was unexpected.

“It hit so fast,” said Jane Lundquist, children’s librarian at the McGregor Public Library, located on Main Street. Watching the storm approach from the library doorway, she said she struggled to close  the door as the wind and rain escalated.

McGregor left completely devastated
The twister demolished several buildings on Main Street McGregor. The three-story brick structure, where INKspiration Tattoo Owner Crystal Scarff ran her business and occupied the upstairs apartment, lost its complete third story and the front of the second story was shredded as well. This building was determined unsalvageable and was removed by Clayton County Recycling over the weekend.

Next door, the Main Street Mall Antiques building collapsed, its top level resting where the ground floor had once been. At the McGregor Pharmacy, the iconic mortar and pestle fell, hanging precariously just above the ground. A portion of the back of the building was torn off.

At the peak of the tornado in downtown McGregor, people—including some who’d just escaped off the Mississippi River—sought refuge in businesses like Pocket City Pub and Latinos Mexican Restaurant.

“People almost got sucked into the street, but they fought their way inside and yelled ‘Get away from the windows! It’s here!’” shared Sarah Davis, who works at Latinos. “It was terrifying for everyone.”

Though traffic into and out of McGregor was barred for days after the tornado, to allow for a safer and speedier clean-up, visitors were once again allowed in over the weekend.

Straight line winds in Prairie du Chien area
In Bridgeport and Prairie du Chien, the hardest hit areas seemed to be three hangars at the municipal airport, which collapsed, and multiple storage sheds, owned by Cleary Buildings/CT Investments, which appeared to have lifted up and exploded onto Vineyard Coulee Road near MPC.

“The third line (of the storage sheds) is completely gone but the unusual thing is that people’s belongings were left still in their same square footage,” said Janaya Eastlick, secretary at Cleary. There were 52 storage units at that location and 11 were destroyed, including the whole third line and four in the first row, Eastlick said. “One of the renters called us about 7 p.m. We were here all night long, cleaning up by flashlight in the rain. Most of the renters came and picked up their valuable items and personal stuff and many of them worked in the heat [Thursday]. It was a long [couple days] but we had good people who came with their rubber boots on to help.”

At the airport, Frank Weeks’ WWII 1942 Aeronca Defender stuck out among the rubble after the storm. According to Weeks, the family will see if this prized possession can be restored or not.

Across the highway at D&J Toppers & RV, Jan Ludvik said they had three campers blown over, a few wrecked toppers and one cargo trailer that traveled quite a distance—over the Crossing Rivers Health employee entrance roadway.

On the south side of the city of Prairie du Chien, the wastewater treatment plant roof was damaged and three docks at the adjacent Campion Street Boat Landing flipped. A dock at Lawler Park, owned by Doc Holidays, also overturned.

River also impacted
Just before the tornado/severe storm hit at the Campion Landing, several fishermen pulled in, quickly loaded their boats and parked in the parking lot to ride it out. Heavy rain pounded the area and high winds rocked the vehicles, snapped off trees and branches, and damaged the wastewater treatment plant roof and the boat docks. One fisherman’s boat blew off of his trailer and landed about 100 feet away. Trees blew down over the railroad tracks near the landing, debris flew everywhere and a camper blew over and spun around.

Several vehicles and their trailers remained unattended in the parking lot. Those vehicles and trailers were presumed to belong to anglers or boaters who got caught out on the river.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Manager for the McGregor District, Brandon Jones, said the FWS went out in boats to search for possible missing boaters. A Prairie du Chien police officer joined the FWS search. Wisconsin DNR warden for Crawford County, Cody Adams, also searched well into the night.

“We are still assessing the damage, but so far only tree damage has been observed on the refuge,” said Jones. “We are temporarily closing the Ambro Slough Landing until we are able to clean the debris up. We did perform searches Wednesday night with the remaining boaters that were left at Campion Landing. There is no information as to how many boaters were caught in the storm. No rescues were initiated, thankfully.” Crawford County Emergency Management Director Jim Hackett said that Adams has his air boat staged and ready to go again if needed.

PdC has plenty of clean-up
Prairie du Chien’s city personnel went to work immediately after the worst of the storm.

“Our main goal was to get all traffic lanes and streets open,” explained Dan Titlbach, Prairie du Chien street superintendent.

Throughout the storm, Hackett said, an emergency operations command center was set up at the Prairie du Chien Fire Station. Crawford County Sheriff Dale McCullick was stationed in the northern part of the county and kept in constant contact.

“With power lines down on trees, we went and cut the trees up that we could,” Titlbach said. “We took care of the boat docks, assessed the airport and then started clean-up of trees.”

Titlbach added that the brush piles at the city’s brush and compost site had been “pushed up” by equipment four times within 24 hours of the storm.

Residents of Prairie du Chien can have their trees (but not building materials) picked up by city crews, he noted. They are asked to lay limbs and branches parallel to the curb. It may take up to two weeks for the city to fully clear tree debris.

Aside from the specific locations in downtown McGregor and the Prairie du Chien area, the damage was more widespread across Crawford, Clayton, Grant and Allamakee counties. Reports from the NWS and area emergency management and law enforcement, in addition to many posts to the Courier Press Facebook page, show that countless public buildings and houses sustained heavy damage, signs were broken and twisted and hundreds of trees were lost. Some of those trees blew onto railroad tracks in the area.

Railroad tracks hit with debris
“The storms in the region resulted in debris on the tracks and crews worked to clear it,” said Amy McBeth, spokesperson for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. “In La Crosse, we also saw some scouring, or erosion of ballast, and had crews shoring up those locations Thursday. In extreme weather events, we conduct additional track inspections and those inspections were taking place in the region as a precaution.”

Power outages a big problem
Furthermore, because power lines were down everywhere, power outages became one of the most prevalent issues regionwide.

Among those without power were a large number of businesses in downtown Prairie du Chien, including the block bookended by Fort Mulligan’s Grillpub and The Pickett Fence quilting shop. Blackhawk Avenue’s Mulligan’s and Simply joined Valley Fish & Cheese, on Iowa Street, in being inconvenienced with the task of keeping their perishable food products cold.

Mike Valley, owner of the local fish market, said the site lost power Wednesday about 6:30 p.m. and it was restored around 1:30 a.m. Friday.

“Thursday, about 5 a.m., we started moving stuff because we weren’t sure when the power would come back on,” Valley stated. “I borrowed a generator to keep the back two freezers going and then we evacuated the entire store. We put the food at different people’s houses.”

Though they saved most of the product, quite a bit was lost as well. “There was just too much to move and we didn’t have enough people. Everybody was having the same problems we were," Valley said.

As of noon Friday, July 21, a significant portion of the counties remained without power. Hackett said power companies worked furiously to restore power.

Heavy rains bring on flooding
While heavy rain came with the tornado and destructible winds Wednesday evening, lighter rain continued throughout the night. Between one and four inches of rain fell across the area July 19-20, the NWS reported.

The rain sent area streams spewing into the Kickapoo River, which was over its banks by Friday morning. Hackett said county board and village presidents from Steuben, Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills declared a preemptive state of emergency because the Kickapoo River was expected to reach near record levels by Saturday.

The river crested at 18.19 feet in Soldiers Grove on Friday, July 21,  according to the NWS. Flood stage at Soldiers Grove is 13 feet. The historic crest was 21.63 feet in 1951. In 2008, the crest was 21.21.

The river crested at 18.08 feet at Gays Mills on Saturday, July 22. Flood stage is 13 feet. The record at Gays Mills was 20.44 in 2008.

In Steuben, the Kickapoo crested at 17 feet on Saturday, July 22. Flood stage at Steuben is 12 feet. The record crest was 19.16 feet in 2008.

Hackett said sandbagging was done in all three municipalities. Sand for the sandbags was donated by Blair Dillman of Prairie Sand and Gravel. The sand was hauled to the various locations by the Crawford County Highway Department, whose personnel were also very busy clearing debris throughout the county.

Flooding in Grant County
Again on Friday night, heavy rains stunned the region. The hardest hit communities included Cassville, Glen Haven, Beetown and Burton, where between five and 10 inches of rain, as well as hail, fell, according to the NWS. Residential areas in Cassville and rural Potosi were evacuated and some rescues were performed.

Damage estimates are preliminary
Clean-up is anticipated to take weeks or months for those affected. Hackett noted that area fire departments offered water to citizens in need.

“We are doing damage assessments throughout the county,” said Hackett, who noted the preliminary damage assessment for public infrastructures in Prairie du Chien was $51,000 as of Friday. Hackett said $20,000 was for debris clean-up, $6,000 for protective measures (including police, fire department, and street department overtime), $5,000 for road systems, $10,000 for public buildings (mainly the roof of the wastewater treatment plant) and $10,000 for debris removal and clean-up at city parks.

Communities come together
In the meantime, community members have already banded together to weather the aftermath of last week’s ruinous events. St. Mary’s Catholic Church in McGregor, powered by a large generator from C.J. Moyna, offered shelter, air conditioning, food and water for the city’s residents and volunteers.

Dozens of volunteers worked for several days, making, serving and delivering food, said Meaghan Schneider, who helped organize the efforts.

As Hackett said, people should be very proud of the way citizens and professionals have aligned and volunteered to support area communities as they battle this setback.

“It was amazing to see how the community came together and worked together. There were adults, teenagers and kids all helping out,” he stated. “It was very humbling.”