The power was back on for most of the 24,000 Indiana Michigan Power customers who lost it during Sunday morning's windstorms, Indiana Michigan Power officials said Monday.

By Monday evening, a little more than 1,000 customers were still waiting for their power to be restored, I&M spokeswoman Susanne Moorman Rowe said. Most of the power outages had been reported in Allen County.

Those customers were scattered across the Fort Wayne area, and company officials expected power would be restored by noon today at the latest, Moorman Rowe said. Initially, I&M officials predicted that power might not be restored to all customers until Thursday.

At noon Sunday, more than 80 traffic signals in the city weren't working. A railroad crossing at Lumbard Street was closed because the crossing signals didn't have electricity, police said.

But Monday most of those traffic signals were working again, and police reported no problems during the morning commute to work, police spokesman Mike Joyner said.

Traffic signals at Brackenridge and South Calhoun streets were still out Monday evening. Electric company crews were working on power poles that line the railroad tracks near the Wayne Trace and South Anthony Boulevard crossing.

About 10 poles still needed to be replaced Monday afternoon, she said. Most of the repairs involved removing limbs from wires and fixing downed power lines.

In DeKalb County, where several homes north of Auburn were severely damaged by high winds early Sunday, several residents are outraged that DeKalb County officials took nearly two hours to respond to their 911 calls.

"911 in Auburn is as ineffective as FEMA, and you can quote me," said Lanie Bergstrom, whose home at 3546 County Road 427 had several windows blown out.

Bergstrom, her husband, Rick, and their daughter, Shelly, said they called 911 shortly after the storm passed through to report possible tornado damage and went outside to wait for assistance.

Sheriff John Dennis said Monday that he "takes full responsibility for the inactions of his personnel" because the homes, just south of DeKalb High School, were outside the city limits.

The first call reporting the storm damage on County Road 427 came at 3:41 a.m. Sunday, Dennis said, when Mike Kohl, the Bergstroms' neighbor, called to report that his windows were shattered, a wall damaged and his cars destroyed.

Two patrol units were on duty at the time, Dennis said, and both were responding to other storm damage calls. The dispatcher told the patrol unit that windows had been blown out at 3554 County Road 427, but the patrol unit was tied up clearing a tree out of the road and didn't respond to the call, Dennis said.

"The sheriff and his personnel should have been more responsive in this emergency," he said. "I apologize to the residents of the 3500 block of County Road 427 for the lack of response to your devastating, life-altering emergency."

Next door to the Bergstroms, at Mike and Kathy Kohl's, the north end of the house is covered with plywood where the wall was ripped out by the wind, and the front wall leans in precariously.

Kathy Kohl clutched a phone book and other personal papers as she and her husband, Mike, prepared to leave their home of 14 years. A representative from their insurance company had told them earlier Monday that their house was a total loss.

Shirley Baird, whose home of 50 years next to the Kohls' had a garage flattened and walls buckled, said she also believes it was a tornado. One minute it was calm and not even raining, she said.

After seeing photos of the damage, meteorologist Michael Boguth of the National Weather Service said the damage appears to have been caused by straight-line winds, not a tornado.

Boguth's office had not received any solid evidence of tornadoes in the area. Based on the damage, officials estimated that winds reached 80 to 90 mph, he said.

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