July 31, 2024 brought widespread damage to areas in Southeast Nebraska and Southeast Iowa. With winds of 70 to 90 mph winds, the July 31 storm knocked down hundreds of trees and power lines, leaving thousands of households without power and in severe damage.

Junior Destiny Free was one of the many people affected by the damage from the storm.

“A tree fell down and broke one of our front porch’s supports, leaving the pole bent slightly,” Free said.

Junior Brock Marsh also faced severe damage to his personal property during the storm.

“The winds blew down the tree and landed on my car,” Marsh said. “It totaled my car.”

Many neighborhoods were tasked with the clean up of fallen trees and debris that littered the streets. Lillian Ave. was one of these many streets, facing a major section of fallen trees that blocked the road completely. The branches hit and damaged the nearby parked cars. During the cleanup, nearly 20 neighbors and nearby residents joined in to help break apart the tree and pull it off the road. 

Along with neighborhood chaos, the storm’s damage stretched even further. In the Omaha-Metro area, around 220,000 households lost power at the outage’s peak. Some people lost power for hours, while others had to push through days without it.

“The power went out in our house for like three or four days,” said Free.

The Omaha Public Power District, or OPPD, reported that this outage was the largest power outage since since their founding in 1946. 

The July 31 storm was extremely harsh on many people. With its damages still affecting people to this day, July 31 will not be forgotten easily by the thousands that were affected. With its fallen power lines and broken tree branches that scattered the ground, this storm will forever be a part of Omaha’s history.