By: Sheila Crowley, Staffwriter
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 there would be a major storm the weekend prior to the event happening. Residents went to bed on Tuesday evening, April 9th with some sleet and awoke 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.
Crews from the local electrical companies worked into the night to try and restore as much power as possible. Fulda reported power out at approximately 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Residents in the community had a brief window of power between midnight and 3:00 a.m. 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: Transmission lines are our number one priority right now. Once we have those lines energized, it will increase the number of members with power. Great River Energy, ITC and Xcel Energy have numerous structures down and have crews working diligently and making progress as we speak.
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.
