Perry County residents faced another round of bad weather over the weekend and into the early part of the week. Severe thunderstorms moved into the region on Friday, followed by torrential rainfall that brought localized flooding from Saturday into Sunday, and then freeze warnings issued by the National Weather Service for Monday and Tuesday.
The average rainfall totals for the region ranged from 4 to 8 inches, causing many areas — particularly county roads and low-lying regions — to flood. Throughout the weekend, Perry County 911 and the sheriff’s department announced the closure of numerous roads in the county and warned motorists against driving into water-covered areas.
Perry County Sheriff Jason Klaus said the recent weather has kept his deputies busy.
“We've been monitoring the weather events over the last couple of weeks, even going back to the tornado back in March,” he said. “It's been a wild ride, for sure. It's kept us on our toes. Our main concern is that we're trying to get the word out to our citizens to keep them safe, whether that's in tornado-type weather or high winds, heavy rains and potential flooding. All of the things that we've experienced over the last couple of weeks really have been our primary focus.
“We have experienced quite a bit of rainfall. Fortunately for us, we had just enough breaks in the weather to allow certain areas that were potentially flooding to go back down until the next round came back up, where it wasn't a catastrophic event. We only had a few roadways that were shut down for a shorter period of time, which was a blessing. I'd like to thank the citizens for their resiliency in adhering to the warnings and paying close attention to what is going on. We only had a few minor emergencies that our first responders had to respond to in reference to weather-related events. That's a testament to our citizens being prepared for these types of events.”
