EF-1 tornados strike West End; Local state of emergency declared in hard-hit Williams Bay (2024)

The sound of 17-year periodic cicadas has been supplanted by the noise of chain saws, dump trucks, front end loaders and scores of electrical utility crews in the wake of two EF-1 tornados that struck concurrently in several West End communities at 8:22 p.m. on Saturday night, with clean-up and restoration work ongoing.

Combined, the two tornados cut an approximately 11.3-mile path of destruction through the West End, packing winds of 100 and 105 miles an hour respectively.

EF-1 tornados on the Enhanced Fujita (EF) Scale are classified as “weak” twisters imposing “moderate” damage, with wind speeds ranging from 86-110 miles an hour.

The Fujita (F) Scale was originally developed by Dr. Tetsuya Theodore Fujita to estimate tornado wind speeds based on damage left behind by a tornado. Today’s widely-used Enhanced Fujita (EF) Scale, developed by a forum of nationally-renowned meteorologists and wind engineersis to assign a tornado a “rating” based on estimated wind speeds and related damage, makes improvements to the original F scale with its array of 28 damage indicators such as building type, structures and trees. The EF Scale, which became operational in 2007, replaced the original F scale, which had been used to assign tornado ratings since 1971.

The two Walworth County tornados were among were among at least six to hit Wisconsin the evening of June 22 in Dane, Jefferson, Rock, Grant and Walworth counties according to Andrew Quigley, a meteorogist with the National Weather Service’s Milwaukee/Sullivan Office at Dousman in neighboring Waukesha County.

Quigley said National Weather Service personnel remained in the field on Monday investigating several possible additional tornado touchdowns last Saturday.

“Definitely a lot of action and a lot of moving pieces,” Quigley said of the work of regional National Weather Service meteorologists tracking Saturday’s severe weather. “Unfortunately, pretty impressive damage. Saturday night, Saturday evening we had a round of pretty signficant strong and severe storms pass through Walworth County ... Some of those storms did produce some pretty significant straight line wind damage, and then also two tornados.”

Storms spawn tornados

After several days of hot, humid weather ahead of an approaching cold front, conditions were ripe on June 22 for severe weather.

“We had a warm summer air mass, very humid out Saturday ... and we had a cold front coming down from the north,” Quigley said. “There was a weak disturbance in the mid levels of the atmosphere. Those things worked together along with the very muggy, unstable air mass to give us widespread showers and storms Saturday afternoon and evening, some of which did become severe and produce those tornados in Walworth County.”

Quigley said one EF-1 tornado, referenced by the National Weather Service as the “Fontana Tornado,” took a southwest to northeast track, touching down just to the south of Geneva Lake in the Village of Fontana near Abbey Springs Country Club around 8:22 p.m., crossing Geneva Lake where it “briefly became a water spout” and then continued along the north shore of Geneva Lake, where it “tracked over [State Hwy.] 50” and then lifted off the south side of Lake Como” in the Town of Geneva.

That tornado, Quigley said, had a path length of 5.3 miles over seven minutes with an estimated peak wind of 100 miles per hour.

Quigley said the second concurrent tornado, dubbed the “Delavan Tornado,” touched down near Lake Lawn Resort in Delavan just to the east of I-43 at 8:22 p.m., tracking southeast over the north side of Delavan Lake “roughly parallel to Hwy. 50 for a period of time” and eventually ending along the north shore of Geneva Lake, cutting through the hard-hit Village of Williams Bay in the Bailey Estates subdivision, the area near the Williams Bay Lions Club Fieldhouse and Lions Athletic Field, Kishwauketoe Nature Conservancy, and scenic Edgewater Park along Geneva Lake in downtown Williams Bay.

That EF-1 tornado tracked “a little over six miles” across the span of eight minutes with a peak wind speed of 105 miles per hour.

“As bad as the damage is, I’m very grateful, the village is very grateful, that no one was harmed,” said Williams Bay Village Administrator David Lothspeich. “It could’ve easily been much worse than what it was.”

Williams Bay Police Chief and Emergency Management Director Justin P. Timm said several homes in Bailey Estates suffrered significant damage.

“A couple of the homes in Bailey Estates had substantial damage to them,” Timm said, noting tornado damage cut a swath through Bailey Estates, Lions Fieldhouse, Kishwauketoe, Cedar Point and the village’s lakefront.

Outside the two tornado corridors, Quigley said there was wind damage from strong straightline winds estimated at 70-80 miles per hour.

“We heard from our survey crew out there in the field that looked at these two tornado paths that to the south of both tornado paths there were stretches of considerable straightline wind damage, damage not affiliated with the two tornados, but rather gusty winds with a thunderstorm ... that put down a lot of trees ... to the southeast of Lake Delavan to near Lake Geneva ... A lot of the tree damage noted ... was along Hwy. 67 just to the northwest of George Williams College.”

Lothspeich said the tornado’s impacts on Williams Bay will be long-lasting.

“I think it’s got some short term and significant long term impacts,” he noted. “Short term, there’s significant damage to some residences that will be repaired, hopefully in short order ... The clean-up’s been going extraordinarily well through the efforts of a lot of people ... Long term, we lost a lot of very mature trees throughout the village. That’s gonna take time.”

Williams Bay, which has a preservation-oriented tree ordinance and on June 17 approved Resolution R-40-24 establishing an Ad-hoc Tree Enhancement Committee, has been an Arbor Day Foundation Tree City USA community for 22 years.

The widespread damage and loss to the community’s leafy canopy will be keenly felt according to Lothspeich, who said the village will have both short and long term responses.

“I’m sure that in the coming weeks and months we’ll be figuring out plans — what can we do yet this year in terms of not just clean-up but replacing trees,” Lothspeich said. “And then, long term, what do our efforts look like, and that will play out over time. Coincidentally, the village just recently adopted the Ad Hoc Tree Enhancement Committee. I’m sure they’ll be playing a role as well. We’ll be working with all of our partners to come up with some plans to try and restore the beauty that’s been taken.”

Among village-owned properties, Lothspeich said “the bulk of the hit” came along Williams Bay’s scenic downtown lakefront along Geneva Lake between Edgewater and Carlson Parks.

There was also some damage at village-owned Kishwauketoe Nature Conservancy, 251 Elkhorn Rd. (State Hwy. 67), a 231-acre volunteer-run nature preserve that serves as the largest undeveloped watershed on Geneva Lake.

All trails were open on Monday according to Kishwauketoe founder, former KNC board chairman and longtime KNC board member Harold Friestad.

“We had a lot of damage, in fact the main part of the twister came right through the entrance here, it came right through the property, but my wonderful crew and volunteers the last couple days got it all cleaned up and I just finished up mowing all the debris, so it’s just like new,” Friestad said. “We got hit good, but 99% of it is cleaned up and ready to go.”

Disaster declaration

In the wake of the tornado, Lothspeich and Timm activated the village’s Emergency Response Plan (ERP) given the tornado’s impact on the residents and the community as a whole, most notably the need for emergency services, public works and the support of multiple other area agencies.

Once the extent of the tornado damage in Williams Bay became clear, Lothspeich on Sunday, June 23 at approximately 1:30 a.m. proclaimed a local state of emergency, declaring a state of emergency in the village.

Providing emergency response to the tornado in Williams Bay were the Williams Bay Police Department, Williams Bay Fire Department, Williams Bay Department of Public Works, Walworth County Sheriff’s Office, City of Delavan Police Department, Fontana Fire Department, Sharon Fire Department, Boone County (Ill.) Fire Protection District No. 1, Elkhorn Fire Department, City of Delavan Fire Department, Town of Delavan Fire Department, Troy Center Fire Department, Walworth Fire Department, and the Mercyhealth MD-1 emergency room physician mobile response unit.

The Walworth County Sheriff’s Office response in Williams Bay included its mobile emergency command unit.

Supporting emergency services providers in their tornado response were the Racine Fire Bells, which provides emergency responder rehab services in Racine, Kenosha and Walworth counties, serving approximately 50 fire departments and various law enforcement agencies.

Utility services responding in Williams Bay included MP Systems, We Energies and Alliant Energy.

“The effort that was done by all agencies ... everybody worked as one,” Timm said. “We able to coordinate efforts with multiple jurisdictions ... to work as a team to make sure everybody was safe and there were no weather-related injuries, which was important to us, and to make sure everything was done as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

Williams Bay Fire Department Chief Doug Smith agreed.

“Everything went very well,” Smith said. “Everybody worked together. It was smooth as could be under the circ*mstances.”

The Williams Bay Village Board held a special 4 p.m. meeting on Monday, June 24, to discuss and approve Resolution R-45-24, officially ratifying Lothspeich’s June 23 state of emergency declaration, a move that provides the authority to carry out all relevant provisions of the village’s emergency response plan and also allows the village to seek Wisconsin Disaster Fund aid to help offset costs associated with the village’s post-tornado clean-up and restoration efforts.

Under the approved resolution, the period of the state of emergency will be limited to the time during which storm recovery response conditions exist or are likely to exist in Williams Bay as determined by the village board, but not to exceed beyond July 1 unless otherwise extended by board trustees.

Wisconsin law empowers the governing body of any municipality to declare, by ordinace or resolution, an emergency whenever conditions arise “by reason of a disaster, or an imminent threat of a disaster,” that impairs transportation, food or fuel supplies, medical care, fire, health or police protection, or other critical systems of the municipality.

At the special June 24 board meeting, Williams Bay Village President Bill Duncan offered words of appreciation to Williams Bay emergency services, public works and administrative staff, the Walworth County Sheriff’s Department, and the numerous responding mutual aid emergency services providers.

“We had great support,” Duncan said.

Timm agreed.

“The Walworth County Sheriff’s Office was instrumental ... in helping us...,” Timm said. “There was a wide variety of fire departments there ... Many different fire departments from neighboring jurisdictions came to help. We were very fortunate to have such a group of people surrounding us helping.”

In a June 24, 9 p.m. press release, Timm provided an update on ongoing recovery efforts in the 2,953-resident village.

“Re-establishment of utility services is well on the way and will continue to be completed,” Timm said. “Residents can track service estimates through their service providers websites. Williams Bay Municipal Dump Site remains open for storm debris. Non-compostable materials should be taken to the dumpsters at the intersection of Kensington Court and Sussex Drive in Bailey Estates.”

Timm also thanked the many agencies that “collectively helped our great community” in the wake of at June 23 tornado.

“Our thanks cannot be expressed enough for the support and efforts of first responders after Saturday night’s tornado,” Timm said.

Timm also saluted the efforts of village employees in responding to the tornado aftermath.

“Williams Bay Police Officers stepped up to the call, coming from home, staying late and extending their work hours over the past several days to serve the village,” he said. “This commitment was echoed by Barrett Memorial Library, Williams Bay Recreation Department and more silent leaders amongst us, dedicated to providing anything they could.”

Timm also praised the efforts of the Department of Public Works.

“The Streets Department’s response to this has been just incredible, with being able to get in, working long hours, and making sure that the roads were cleared in a timely fashion,” he said.

Though the village has gone through some dark days in the wake of the tornado, Timm is optimistic about the community’s future.

“As I reflect and express my gratitude, it is also time to move forward.,” Timm said. “Although damaged, our community is not broken and already well on our way to repair. I am confident these restoration efforts will be met by a swift response as we continue to support each other.”