Power back on after Q-C iced in
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By Linda Cook | Sunday, December 02, 2007 |
UPDATE: Power back on after Q-C iced in
Almost 97 percent of Quad-City MidAmerican Energy customers who lost power over the weekend had their power restored by 10:30 p.m. Sunday.
About 115 MidAmerican crew members were in the field late Sunday working to restore power, said utility spokesman Allan Urlis. Almost 65,000 MidAmerican Energy customers lost power in Iowa and Illinois at some point as a result of Saturday’s ice storm, and the Quad-Cities, by far, was the worst hit.
Urlis said most Quad-City customers can expect to have power back by today.
“By our count, we had half an inch of ice, and more, on poles, trees and wires,” Urlis said. “So that was the issue — the amount of ice on the system.” Crews are busy putting up lines, replacing poles and replacing fuses, he said.
“Now it’s the location that makes it difficult to get the work done — in rear-lot lines and ravines, for example,” Urlis said. “We’re doing everything we can to get everybody on as soon as possible.”
Most of the Quad-Citians without power late Sunday were on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River.
About 10:30 p.m., 78 customers in Davenport and one in Bettendorf were without power. In Moline, 103 were in the dark, and 35 in East Moline were without power. About 29 were affected in Rock Island, 11 in Silvis and 71 in Hillsdale. About 144 customers in rural Rock Island and Henry counties did not have electricity.
“In some cases, where the power line was torn away from where it connects to the house, homeowners will need to have an electrician inspect the wiring inside the house before MidAmerican Energy can safely restore power,” Urlis said.
For real-time power outage information, customers can go to midamericanenergy.com and select Live System Outage Watch from near the center of the home page. The information comes directly from MidAmerican Energy’s Electric Outage Management System and is updated about every 10 minutes.
As Quad-City area residents recovered from power outages and ice-covered roads became navigable, they turned out in droves at local shopping centers. Throngs headed to NorthPark Mall in Davenport Sunday afternoon, and an employee at a Davenport Kmart store said that business picked up briskly Sunday compared to Saturday’s slow-down because of the weather.
Things were busy Sunday at the Wal-Mart SuperStore, 5811 Elmore Ave., Davenport, Assistant Manager Peggy Douglas said. But it wasn’t as bustling as it was on Friday.
“Friday was when everybody was preparing for the storm on Saturday,” Douglas said. “The items that really went were food, milk, bread, water — the essentials. Everybody was doing their baking since they were going to be iced in. The baking items like flour and sugar, went real well, and we sold a lot of salt and ice melt.”
Sunday began picking up steam as usual about 11 a.m., “when church lets out,” she said.
And, although Sunday gave a few hours of respite from the cold, it looks as though chilly temperatures will be on hand for the rest of the week.
After a cold front swept across the area Sunday morning, “We actually saw temperatures slowly falling all day long,” said Mike McClure, meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “It was accompanied by some rain showers, and even a few lingering flurries (Sunday) afternoon for a short while, especially to the north of us.”
Now we’re looking at clearing skies and cold skies as high pressure builds in to start the work week. “We’ll see lots of sunshine (today),” he said. High temperatures should be in the lower 30s, he said. Then the Alberta Clipper, a system that originates in Alberta, Canada, will bring in cold and snow.
“We’re tracking that system, which has the potential to bring an inch or two of snow,” McClure said. That means a chance of snow late Tuesday. “We’ll just have to see how the track takes the storm,” he said.
The rest of the week will be colder, with highs in the middle 20s on Wednesday, dipping down around 10 degree on Wednesday night. Highs will be back near 30 on Thursday, he said.
The high Sunday was 45, which occurred at 3:21 a.m. Sunday.
Because of a large power outage in the Sterling/Rock Falls area in Illinois, the Whiteside County Emergency Management and the Rock Falls chapter of the American Red Cross set up a warming shelter at Harvest Time Bible Church, 1802 Dixon Ave., Rock Falls. The shelter closed at 2 a.m. Sunday because no one arrived to take advantage of the shelter. Warming shelters also were open at the Fulton Fire Station, 912 4th St.; and Prophetstown Lutheran Church, 3rd and Locust streets, Prophetstown.
The Whiteside County Sheriff’s Department warns people to be aware and stay away from any downed power lines, which are on the ground in numerous locations throughout the county. The lines could be energized. Anyone who comes in contact with a live power line risks serious injury or death, the sheriff’s department warns.
Whether lines are overhead or underground varies by location, MidAmerican’s Urlis said. “When you’re looking at overhead versus underground, repairing underground electrical outages generally takes a little bit longer because you can’t see everything.
“But a lot of new developments, for example, residential areas, have underground electric lines. A lot of the overhead wires are existing power lines,” Urlis continued. “To go back and make everything underground would be terribly expensive and would impact customers’ electric prices.”
The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2450 or newsroom@qctimes.com.
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