As residents prepare to clean up the damage caused by this weekend’s tornadoes, meteorologists say more storms will arrive by mid-week.
Storms, possibly severe, are forecasted to affect Johnson County and much of Indiana Tuesday night into Wednesday. However, there is a lot of uncertainty about when the storms will occur, said Greg Melo, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Indianapolis.
For now, the best chance of severe storms seems to be closer to Wednesday afternoon, Melo said. Damaging winds is the main threat from the storms, but large hail and tornadoes are also possible.
The possibility of more storms has left some residents weary in light of the destruction caused by Friday night’s tornadoes. Throughout the day Monday, community members, volunteers and utility crews worked to clean up the damage in hard-hit Whiteland.
The Whiteland twister was upgraded Monday afternoon to EF-3 with max winds of 140 mph, the storm was preliminarily rated EF-2. The National Weather Service in Indianapolis upgraded the rating Monday afternoon after further evaluation of the storm damage.
Utility crews have been working all weekend to restore power throughout the greater Whiteland area. On Monday, Whiteland Road remained closed between U.S. 31 and Graham Road as crews worked to fix downed power lines and more.
Elsewhere in the Whiteland area, crews continued to work on clearing debris from Interstate 65 between Tracy Road and Franklin. The interstate was open, but traffic was slowed down as debris was cleaned up and removed.
Further south, crews were also working to fix downed lines along the southbound lanes of U.S. 31 between Whiteland and Franklin. The southbound lanes of U.S. 31 from near Whiteland Road to Christian Boulevard/Oakville Boulevard continued to be closed on Monday as this work took place. The northbound lanes remained open.
Some parts of the town had power again by Monday afternoon, but many areas still did not.
For the parts of town served by Bargersville utilities, crews were working to restore power. Some homes were expected to have power within the next day or so, while other homes will “take the most of the week to complete,” the town of Bargersville posted on Facebook Tuesday morning.
Duke Energy Indiana officials expect most Johnson County customers to have power by tonight.
In the Johnson County district, about 7,600 were affected by power outages caused by two tornadoes and significant winds, but the utility as of about 3:30 p.m. Monday had restored power to all but about 500 customers, said Duke Energy spokesperson Angeline Protegere.
“We expect to have the majority of those customers back in service by around 6 p.m.,” she said in an email. “Statewide we brought in more than 450 additional resources, including contractors and employees from our Ohio and Kentucky operations to supplement our workforce and speed up power restoration.”
It will take longer than anticipated to restore power to some customers in rural Bargersville. That’s because, in one area of State Road 135 south of State Road 144, 25 poles were broken by the EF-0 tornado that struck rural Union Township, Protegere said.
About 23 customers will remain without service until repairs to that area are complete, and the utility will be working throughout the evening to complete those repairs, she said.
Lack of power closed both the Boys and Girls Club and Girls Inc. on Monday, along with the Johnson County Courthouse and Johnson County Prosecutor’s Office. The courthouse has received damage from strong winds, and a structural engineer was evaluating the building on Monday, county commissioner Kevin Walls said.
While power was restored to the areas of downtown near the courthouse and prosecutor’s office, the buildings were still without power. Officials were still investigating the cause of this Monday afternoon, Walls said.
