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Monday Afternoon Windstorm Blasts Cortez Houses, Power Lines

Gail Binkly

A brief but intense windstorm blew down trees and caused a power outage when it swirled through Cortez Monday afternoon. Empire Electric energy management specialist Andy Carter tells KSJD that the severe wind event, or microburst, began near Southwest Memorial Hospital and traveled east to Cherry Street. Carter says the high winds caused power lines to slap together, triggering circuit breakers. Power was out to the northeast portion of Cortez for about an hour, as crews removed several trees that had blown onto power lines. Strong gusts also uprooted two blue spruce trees on Alma Avenue east of Mildred Avenue. One of the trees, which was some 50 feet tall, fell westward across a vehicle and onto a residential roof, but damage was fairly minor and there were no injuries. Local weather observer James Andrus says the storm brought just three-hundredths of an inch of rain.

KSJD's Gail Binkly had a tree fall on her house (see photo above). Click below to listen to her first-hand account.

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Gail Binkly is a career journalist who has worked for the Colorado Springs Gazette and Cortez Journal, and was the editor of the Four Corners Free Press, based in Cortez.
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