A Salem Police officer responding to a call about a tree limb going through the roof of a home Friday night had gotten out of his squad car just seconds before another tree limb crashed onto it.
The incident occurred at a home in the 200 block of Oak Tree Drive.
The original limb had gone through the roof and ended up crashing through the bathroom ceiling of the home. Those in the home were not hurt.
A responding officer had parked his car in the driveway and as he started to walk to the home, another large limb fell and caused significant damage to the hood and shattered the windshield. A power line was also pulled down onto the squad car.
After Tri-County Electric cut the line, the tree limb was removed from the squad car which was towed away.
Salem Police Chief Kyle Ambuehl feels the SUV is repairable. He’s thankful for no injuries following the close call.
The call was one of seven the Salem Fire Protection District responded involving downed tree limbs and live power lines. Salem Police and Fire are not aware of any other calls where there was damage to a building.
The storms Friday night whipped up winds of over 45 miles per hour. Earlier in the day, a tree limb hit a power line on North Franklin Street causing it to fall and spark. That started an outage on the Ameren Illinois system that at one point involved more than 600 residents and left around 450 without power for about five hours beginning just before noon.
The Marion County Sheriff’s Department handled multiple reports of trees and tree limbs falling onto roadways.
The two-day storm system from the remnants of Hurricane Helene dumped a total of 1.86 inches of rain at the Salem Water Treatment Plant and 1.94 inches at the Centralia Water Treatment Plant.
