July 1st Storm Causes Major Damage
On Friday, July 1st, Lyon-Lincoln Electric Cooperative’s service territory was hit with a severe thunderstorm which included a confirmed EF2 tornado with estimated winds around 115 mph and a width of a quarter mile. The tornado was on the ground for approximately 3 miles. The storm started in the southwest portion of the cooperative’s service territory in Lincoln County and continued to the north and east throughout the cooperative’s service territory in Lyon County. The EF2 tornado went through the city of Tyler and caused severe damage to the cooperative’s building and vehicles. The cooperative’s garage/shop area had its garage doors blown in and the roof peeled off. This caused a two hour delay in the restoration process as cooperative personnel worked on getting the necessary vehicles out of the garage/shop area.
East River Electric Power Cooperative, the cooperative’s transmission and power supplier, also wheels power to the city of Tyler and because the transmission service was down, the cooperative did not have full electric service during the first 3 days of the restoration process. The cooperative was able to use its generator to provide emergency power to a couple of lights in the hallway, the phone system, a few outlets and the radio system. The cooperative brought in another small generator to run the network server and computers in the front part of the office building and was able to use Lincoln County’s emergency light stand and generator. The light stand was used for site security and the generator was used to run our fuel pumps.
Our initial estimate shows that the cooperative had between 250 to 300 poles damaged by the storm and we feel that this number will grow as the repair process continues over the next several months. As I mentioned before, East River Electric also experienced severe damage to its transmission system with the loss of around 100 poles. We would like to extend our thanks to East River for their willingness to fly over our distribution system to identify damage at the same time they were looking for damage to their transmission system. The damage to the transmission system caused all of our members to experience an outage over the restoration process. To help with the restoration process, East River was able to supply power to some of the substations from another direction and this allowed the cooperative to bring power into outage areas from the other substations with power. The cooperative had power restored to all known outages by July 6th at 8:30 pm.
The cooperative’s emergency restoration plan provides the employees at the cooperative with a guide on how things will be done during this type of situation. The plan calls for line crews to get three phase lines up and running first, then concentrate on the single phase lines and then finally the individual outages. The cooperative works in this order of restoration, so that it can restore power to the largest number of members as fast and as safely as possible. During a storm of this size, you may see the line crews and their trucks drive by your location several times before power is restored. We understand that this can cause some frustrations with some members that believe that a simple and quick fix will get power restored to their home. Please remember that the crews are focused on getting power restored to your area as fast and safely as they can and will get to your issue as soon as they possibly can.
In addition to the cooperative’s 7 linemen and 2 additional operations personnel, Lyon-Lincoln Electric was able to receive help from two neighboring cooperatives, 2 area line construction companies, and 1 municipal. In total, 47 outside lineman were brought in to help the cooperative restore power to its member-owners. Legacy Powerline Construction arrived on July 2nd and brought 14 linemen. Federated Rural Electric Association also arrived on July 2nd and brought 2 linemen and their Operation Manager. Sioux Valley Energy arrived with 4 linemen on July 3rd and another 6 linemen showed up on July 4th. Marshall Municipal Utilities arrived with 2 linemen on July 3rd and another 3 linemen on July 4th. Finally, Highline Construction, after working for the city of Tyler, started sending linemen on July 3rd and ended up having 15 linemen working for the cooperative. The outside crews brought additional material, trucks, track vehicles and trailers to help in the restoration process as well. The cooperative would like to thank them for helping us and giving up their 4th of July weekend to restore power to our member-owners.
The commitment and dedication of the line crews and inside crews showed as their days would start at 6:00 am and they would continue to work well into the evening to get power to as many members as they could each day. To keep the crews busy throughout the day, meals were prepared by the Country House in Lake Benton and delivered to the crews by employees of the cooperative. Inside employees also came in to help out by answering the phones for those of you that had questions about the restoration process and to help deliver necessary items to the outside crews.
The cooperative would like to thank our equipment, materials and pole vendors, who were able to bring necessary materials and poles in on July 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th to help in the restoration process.
This is just the first step of the power restoration process. We are working on getting assistance from FEMA and the line crews will be spending the next few months completing their line work and cleaning up broken poles in the storm damaged areas. During this time, the cooperative would like to remind everyone to look up to see if there is enough line clearance to get in and out of fields and other areas with their equipment.
We would like to thank all of our members, outside crews, Lincoln and Lyon County emergency managers and others for their patience and support of Lyon-Lincoln Electric throughout the storm restoration process. I would like to personally thank the employees of the cooperative for their dedication and commitment to the member-owners of the cooperative during the restoration process as well.
To view photos and videos of the damage and recovery efforts visit. http://flickr.com/llecoop/
