Getting Your Power Back During an Ice Storm

The ice storm the first week of January in 2005 coated our system with as much as an inch of ice. Ice causes several problems, with the major one being trees.  As the ice coats the trees, the weight of the ice makes the limbs sag. Limbs that are normally five or six feet away from our lines can sag into our lines under the weight of the ice. Some limbs simply cannot support the additional weight of the ice and break, falling onto our lines. Under either of these circumstances, your power goes off and we dispatch a crew to restore your service. 

In the more open areas that we serve, ice causes a different type of problem that we call "galloping".  When the ice coats our lines, the shape of the wire changes from being round into a shape very similar to a wing on an airplane. Once our wires take on the shape of a wing, it doesn't take much of a wind to give them some lift. The lift causes the wires to bounce or "gallop". The galloping can break the wires or make them bounce into each other. When two wires touch; it can cause your lights to blink, it can cause a breaker to trip completely off, or sometimes one or both wires can melt in two. Galloping can also occur when the ice melts.  Ice always causes problems, both during an ice storm, and when melting.

When we experience wide-spread outages, one problem I know you have is getting through on the telephone to report your outage. It takes us about thirty seconds to get your information when you call in to report an outage. That means one person answering the phone can take about 120 calls in an HOUR. When we have a thousand members without power, chances are, you may get a busy signal. I would ask you to please be patient and call back until you can report your outage. During the last ice storm we had, we used our voice mail system to help take your calls. I can assure you that we were constantly retrieving those messages.  

We’d like to thank you for your understanding and patience while we restore your electric service during any service interruption.