Storms Push Through Mahaska County

Members of the Mahaska County CERT Team worked on Saturday night to make major travel arteries passable.

Mahaska County, Iowa – A strong line of thunderstorms pushed through Mahaska County on Saturday evening, causing people to seek shelter at the Southern Iowa Fairgrounds just after 6 pm.

This was the second year in a row the KIIC Wing Ding Fling Thing and main concert for the Southern Iowa Fair was impacted by severe weather.

As the storm pounded the county, reports came in of tree branches down and then large portions of trees being knocked over, with many of them finding their way into power lines.

New Sharon had some damage from the storm, including the tree and power line damage.

The area north of Fremont showed signs of high winds, as a small wood shed was blown over, landing on the roadway.

In Fremont itself, large trees were damaged, getting tangled up in power lines as they fell.

Mahaska County Sheriff Russ Van Renterghem said that he believed the entire community of Fremont was without power.

Van Renterghem was encouraging people not to drive to Fremont, and Highway 23 between Cedar and Fremont was closed due to downed power lines on the roadway.

The highway was also closed on the east side of Fremont, and only local residents were being allowed to pass.

“We would like everybody just to stay completely away from Fremont. For those that live here, we’d really just like them to stay in their houses and let the emergency responders deal with that,” said Van Renterghem.

Mahaska County CERT members were in Fremont helping to clear essential debris on Saturday night. The plan was to have them return on Sunday to remove downed trees, many of them tangled with power lines.

Wind gusts were reported to be upwards of 80 mph in some portions of the county.

The National Weather Service had limited information until they began to gather more facts on Sunday morning.