Just kidding… Just when you thought Mother Nature had already thrown a historic storm your way earlier this winter, April hits and not only snow, but wind, rain, and ice hit the area to basically shut down the majority of southwest Minnesota.
Meteorologists predicted that there would be a major storm the weekend prior to the event happening. Residents went to bed on Tuesday evening, April 9th with light rain/sleet and woke to thunder-snow. As Wednesday progressed the precipitation alternated between snow, ice, and rain. Along with that came the strong winds. Power outages started coming across the wire late Wednesday afternoon-exactly six years to the day that the area was hit with another ice storm in 2013.
Crews from the local electrical companies worked into the night to try and restore as much power as possible. As the day progressed on Thursday gusting winds not only created dangerous working conditions for the linemen, but also added downed lines.
At 1:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon this was the latest update from Nobles County Cooperative: “Nobles Cooperative Electric crews and linemen from other cooperatives (Minnesota Valley Cooperative Light and Power, Runestone Electric Association, Agralite Electric Cooperative and Highline) are working on various outages on our distribution system caused from downed poles, wire, crossarms and trees. They are working on the areas with the most damage first. The areas they are working on today are the townships of Worthington, Lismore, Wilmont, Fulda and Lake Wilson.
Officials reported that the western side of Murray and Nobles County were hit the hardest. Nobles County Electric Line Superintendent Brian Potsma estimated that 300 power poles (and as many as 500) both 65 foot transmission lines and 35-40 foot power poles could need replacement. He commented that the predictions were spot on. The hardest hit areas were in the Wilmont area, Lismore and Reading. The first reports started coming into Nobles Cooperative Electric around 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday and they quickly escalated to include the NCE service area from the Minnesota-Iowa border to Lake Shetek
“The transmission lines are really the culprit of the majority of these outages,” according to Tracy Haberman, member services manager of NCE. “Some structures have over 100 poles down. It takes a lot of crews and manpower to get those back up.” Hopes were to have at least some of the areas up and going by Saturday or Sunday, however, she cautioned, it may go into the upcoming week. “There’s hundreds of people to restore power to.”
Over 4,000 members in southwest Minnesota were said to be without power by Friday afternoon, compared to the 6,700 initial outages. There were crews working from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Haberman estimated approximately 400 poles were on the ground. “A lot of the transmission lines from ITC, Xcel, and Great Energy have to be energized and once they are energized, we might find more structures that need to be replaced.”
The dedicated linemen worked on the lines battling the wind, rain, and snow trying to bring electricity back. Haberman also wanted to bring awareness to the fact Nobles Cooperative Electric transmission lines are fed from Great River Energy, ITC and Xcel. “Without their transmission lines working, ours don’t either.” She went on to caution people to stay away from downed power lines and call the cooperative to report downed lines. Haberman said the cooperative keeps a map of the downed lines, however, sometimes people will run across one they didn’t know about.
A news release from Xcel Energy stated more crews were arriving to help get power restored for those affected in their area. Over 870 were impacted in Murray County. Crews were working along 150th Street near Slayton to help restore electricity to the communities of Hadley, Lake Wilson, and Slayton.
Many areas were told it could be days before service was restored, making generators a hot commodity as area residents looked for alternative sources to provide electrical power to their homes. By Thursday afternoon every generator in the communities of Slayton, Luverne and Worthington were sold out. Stores scrambled to locate additional generators. Bomgaars in Slayton received 10-12 generators on Thursday and they were all gone as of Friday morning. The managers of Bomgaars hoped to acquire additional generators to be available by Friday afternoon. C & B in Slayton expected a shipment on Friday afternoon with each of those spoken for. The Jackson location was to receive 50 more by Saturday. On most occasions the generators were already spoken for before arriving on the scene.
Jackson and Martin Counties were also hard hit by the storm.
It was the same story there.
By Tuesday morning, April 16, approximately 659 members of NCE still remain without power. “Sixty-five lineman working on our distribution system and over 100 contractors working on transmission lines, continue to address the outage with the same force as when they began.
Today, we anticipate members in the city of Wilmont, townships of Leeds and northern Fenton to be energized. Crews will also backfeed and energize the majority of the members of Lake Sarah from the Ellsborough Substation. Tomorrow, crews will energize the four circuits going out of the Rushmore Substation. Members in Mason, Murray and Holly Townships are estimated to have their power restored on Wednesday. We have tried to use as many emergency backfeeds as we can, unfortunately these areas do not have enough capacity.
During the power outages, communities had set up areas to provide a warm place and in some cases a hot meal for those without power, especially for the linemen working in the less than desirable weather.
Again Mother Nature has proven to be stronger than all of our man-made structures. Let’s hope she is done playing in the snow for the year, at least for now!
