A quick but devastating storm blackened the skies late afternoon July 31. Wind wreaked havoc across Lincoln, including at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s City and East campuses.
According to the National Weather Service’s weather observations at Lincoln Municipal Airport, a total of 1.15 inches of rain fell. The highest wind gusts occurred between 4:57 and 5:25 p.m., with speeds reaching 83 miles per hour around 5 p.m.
Power loss on campus was minimal, though all five utility plants across City, East and Nebraska Innovation campuses were affected by brownouts — a partial reduction in power — including one major outage, but power to the majority of campus buildings was restored by around 6 p.m. July 31.
Clay Kelly, director of utility services, said their priority is to notify members of the campus community of any outages, for their own safety and that of their work.
"We want to protect safety of students, faculty and staff, and protect research," Kelly said. "Many departments have research freezers, so they need to be notified that they need to check those freezers and make sure they're operating."
Another immediate concern for campus crews were downed trees and branches. Jeff Culbertson, director of landscape operations, said damage was widespread. In addition to small and large branches down, entire trees were lost near Canfield Administration Building, and near 35th Street on East Campus.
After the storm cleared Wednesday evening, a handful of landscape crew members returned to campus to assess the damage.
“The focus was on safety concerns, clearing sidewalks and removing anything that was an immediate concern,” Culbertson said.
Crews began campuswide cleanup at 6 a.m. Aug. 1, with a focus on removing the largest branches and debris first. As the work continues, crews will begin looking for any damage that didn’t lead to a downed branch or tree, but that could cause problems in the future. Regular maintenance of trees likely reduced damage on campus, compared to what has been seen across Lincoln and Omaha, Culbertson said.
“Over the next few weeks, we’ll assess everything, before students start returning to campus, to make sure everything is safe,” he said. “Our crews do a really good job making sure trees are pruned at all times, and that helps significantly in minimizing overall damage when something like this happens.”
Tree branches and debris are reused on campus. Culbertson said the branches will be turned into mulch and leaves will be composted.
While facilities and landscape crews will be combing the campuses, they also ask that if someone notices damage or debris, contact the Facilities Service Desk at 2-1550 from a campus phone or 402-472-1550 from any other phone, or by email at servicedesk@unl.edu.
