Fargo Fire Received 3x Volume of Calls, Metro Area Cleans Up After Storm
There were 95 calls Monday from 6 to 10 p.m.
FARGO, N.D. — Lots of streets throughout the metro are still scattered with debris and tree branches.
Monday was a busy evening for the Fargo Fire Department.
They say they had three times the volume of calls they normally have during the storm. That’s 95 calls from 6 to 10 p.m.
“It compounds. They were coming in faster than we could take them. So we just have to start prioritizing and go on calls as quickly as we can get to them,” Battalion Chief Bruce Anderson said.
Most of the calls were for downed power lines, knocked over trees, and building damage. Some building alarm systems also go off when the power is out. Luckily, there were no fires during that time frame. The real culprit was the wind from the storm.
“It was the wind, that’s what happened. The winds come through, it was a pretty significant wind that came through last night,” Anderson said.
That wind left people like John Sargent cleaning up Tuesday afternoon.
“Just the wind that was really heavy there for about 15 minutes. And it was done but the trees leaned over and our neighbors, some of them had a lot more damage than we do,” he said.
He says his power didn’t come back on until this morning.
“We were okay. The freezer didn’t thaw out or anything, we were fine,” Sargent said.
Some of the most significant damage happened along Main Avenue. Part of the roof of a warehouse used by OK Tire blew into the street and left a whole mess.
“Main Avenue was covered with the roof of the building we rent. And the telephone poles between the pawn shop and the building we were in were snapped off, power lines were across the street,” Mitch Nelson, warehouse manager for OK Tire, said.
He says he doesn’t know if the building will be a total loss.
“What’s next? It’s what I deal with daily around here with businesses. There’s always something that’s going to happen,” he said.
Despite all of this, Nelson says business will go forward as usual.
