Storm Cleanup in the South Valley | Visalia Storm Cleanup | ABC30 Fresno

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By ABC30

Friday, May 29, 2009

Visalia, CA The storm lasted several hours Thursday night and tore down trees and power lines.

Fire fighters and PG&E crews were busy all Thursday night taking hundreds of emergency calls from people who suffered damage from the storm. Friday morning AT&T crews were fixing up a power line on south lovers lane at Wescott Avenue. Tulare County firefighters said they were out at more than 30 calls for downed power lines Thursday night.

In Visalia, as thunder and lightning rocked the skies, high winds toppled trees like one near Highway 198 and Lovers Lane. The city of Visalia opened up its emergency operations center because of a high volume of emergency calls. Firefighters said they received more than 50 calls for downed trees and power lines.

One woman said as soon as she heard the storm hit, rushed home to find a canopy that was on her driveway toppled over onto her front lawn, knocking over bushes and a large basketball net. "I started honking the horn for my husband to come out and he says 'what'? And I say 'what do you mean what? We got an elephant upside down in our front yard,'" said Eva Yukick of Visalia. Eva said she and her husband are going to spend the day cleaning up the mess in their front yard. She said she was surprised they didn't see even more damage to their property.

The city said public works crews will be working most of the day Friday cleaning up smaller, non-emergency debris that they weren't able to get to Thursday night.