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SLAMMED!
By Times Staff
3/3/2007 12:00:00 AM
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Cedar Falls Utilities crews were working hard Monday morning, Feb. 26 to assess some of the worst pole and line damage resulting from the weekend storm, at the intersection of Viking Road and Cedar Heights Drive. CFU is also offering water for those out still out of power.
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When 7,000 customers lost power last Saturday morning, it was the start of a long, icy weekend for Cedar Falls Utilities’ (CFU) construction workers and staff.
“We had over 1,600 outage calls Saturday and Sunday,” said CFU Construction Services Manager Dan Goetz. Nearly 10,000 customers were out of power at some point over the weekend, with outage durations ranging from a few minutes to as much as three days for a handful of customers near downed utility poles.
“We had more customers lose power Saturday than all of last year,” Goetz said.
A transmission line fault at CFU’s Streeter substation threw about 7,000 customers out of power at 9:37 a.m. Saturday morning. The lights were back on by 10:44 a.m. in the affected area, which included College Square Mall, downtown Cedar Falls and North Cedar. A three-day ice storm in the early 1980s is the last time Goetz recalls such a widespread outage in Cedar Falls.
As ice, wind and snow continued through Saturday, lines went down and poles snapped, keeping utility crews working many hours on Saturday and throughout the day and night on Sunday.
Cable TV and Internet services were also interrupted for some customers, since CFU’s communications lines share poles with overhead electric service in many areas.
“We ended the day Saturday with about 300 customers out of power, mostly in the rural areas,” said CFU Operations Director Ed Schultz. “Sunday we made good progress in better weather and brought it down to fewer than 10 customers still without power by Sunday night.”
Some of the last customers to be restored were near the corner of Cedar Heights Drive and Viking Road, where CFU crews set seven new poles to replace those snapped off by the storm. System-wide, about 40 poles went down due to wind and ice.
“Ice storms are our biggest fear, because they can damage our whole system at once and neighboring towns at the same time,” Goetz said.
“Our crews put in a great effort. In these situations the goal is to work safe and get the customers back on, and they do whatever it takes to accomplish that,” he said. “All of our people teamed up to get the job done, including people from other departments.”
While lineworkers restored power, other staff members worked all weekend in CFU’s “war room,” fielding phone calls, solving problems and organizing outage repairs. “We were able to keep the lineworkers setting poles and repairing lines, while other employees stepped up to help on the phones and out in the field,” Goetz said.
Lineworker supervisor Don Williams and an improvised crew consisting of Communications Technician Jeff Card and Senior Electric Planner (and former lineworker) Dennis Anderson worked on electric repairs using an aerial truck from the Communications Utility. “That’s an example of the teamwork that helped us get the job done,” Goetz said.
Two CFU retirees, Dick Eades and Gordon Herbsleb, came in at 6 a.m. Sunday to survey the entire rural service area with Energy Services staff members Pete Olson and Jim Anderson.
“Dick and Gordy have nearly 80 years of experience between them, so they know our system and they were able to tell us exactly where we had problems and what equipment and people we were going to need at each location out in the country. Their help was so important, because it allowed us to keep the crews working effectively.”
Many outage calls last weekend were answered by the Utilities’ automated reporting system, known as Porshe, which can handle dozens of calls at one time. The Porshe system cues customers to report a service outage for electricity, gas, water, Internet or Cable TV service using either touch tone or voice responses. Porshe recognizes the incoming phone number and cross references it with the customer’s address, helping CFU staff find and solve outages more quickly.
“When a storm does this much damage, you find out whether you’ve done a good job of emergency planning,” noted CFU General Manager Jim Krieg. With ice in the forecast for Saturday, CFU staff took the opportunity Friday to review emergency plans, prepare equipment and make sure workers would be on hand over the weekend. Water towers were pumped full, just in case an electric outage temporarily shut down the pumps.
“We appreciate the customers’ patience and understanding last weekend,” Krieg said. “Some of them called us Monday just to say thanks for the great service.”
Some went further than that. On Sunday afternoon, one customer brought his pick-up with a grill in back and cooked hamburgers for the crews setting poles along Butler Road. “That was quite a surprise, and the guys really appreciated it,” said Goetz.
By Tuesday, CFU was able to send crews to help with repairs in neighboring towns. CFU’s Tom Potter and Chuck Grooms worked in Denver on Tuesday, while Larry Smith, Shawn Praska and Jamie Meier worked in Traer. A four-person CFU crew of Craig Schwickerath, Jamie Meier, Lew Chipp and Levi Gulick worked on repairs for the Butler County Rural Electric Cooperative from Wednesday through the weekend.
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