By Lori EhdeSeveral storms in the past week have sent Rock County residents to their yards cleaning up fallen branches, and some cases, removing entire damaged trees.The area has been fortunate to escape hail and tornadoes, but middle-of-the-night thunderstorms often came with damaging winds that left messes in their wake.Cleanup has become a daily affair for many people, since four of the past seven nights have been stormy.According to information from the Rock County Sheriff’s Office, storms passed through the area July 3, 4, 6 and 7 in the past week alone. Much of the clean-up work amounted to simple picking up sticks and using simple supplies, like rakes and wheel barrows.But in some locations, heavy equipment was needed to remove downed trees and correct affected power lines.According to Luverne Public Works Employee Darrel Ykema, city crews on Wednesday were finally able to get back to mowing and their other usual duties."We’re two days behind on everything," he said.Most Public Works employees and some city linemen were involved in city cleanup all day Monday and Tuesday.Public Utilities Director Red Arndt said linemen were involved in trimming some wayward branches, but he said there were no damaged lines."Most of ours are underground, so we didn’t have an outage," Arndt said. He said having power lines underground saves the city in repairs and labor in times like these."There were whole cities in South Dakota without power," he said. "This is why we did it."The thunderstorms also dropped about 1 1/2 inches of rain in Rock County during the past week, as of Wednesday noon.
