News : VMEU crews, REC still repairing storm-damaged power lines

While electrical service has been restored throughout Vinton, much work remains.

REC crews (above) and VMEU crews continue to rebuild power infrastructure damaged by July 11 storm.

The July 11 storm that damaged most houses in Vinton and wreaked havoc with the city’s electrical infrastructure was the worst that Rich Ohrt has seen in his 35 years of working with local utilities.

Ohrt, the general manager of the Vinton Municipal Electric Utility (VMEU) said on Tuesday morning that while every house that is in condition to receive electricity had power restored within days after the storm, there is much more work to be done to restore the city’s power grid to its pre-storm status.

“It’s still cobbled together,” said Ohrt, explaining that many damaged poles that are still holding up power lines could easily come down if there is a 50 mph wind. Also, the city’s street light system is still in need of repairs.

Crews north of town were repairing lines belonging to REC along Highway 150; the rural service has been working since 2007 to repair parts of its system damaged by an ice storm in February of that year, as well as damage from this summer's storm.

Power was out in Vinton on Tuesday morning because of weather-related issues with the Alliant system that serves Vinton. The local generators were turned on to provide service until the Alliant system could be repaired. There were also three substations serving rural customers in the REC system that went down because of the storm that passed through on Tuesday morning, leaving some REC customers without power for a few hours. The REC said the problem was due to the service interruptions caused by the weather.

Ohrt said his crews are still working full-time to fix the broken poles and restore the street light network. He said he believed the street light system should be fully repaired within a week.

On July 11, with power lines down throughout Vinton, several crews from several other towns arrived to help with the recovery.

“Vinton was assisted by crews from the cities of Brooklyn, Cedar Falls, Independence, Indianola, Maquoketa, Muscatine, Traer and Waverly,” said Ohrt. Others who helped include the East Central Iowa REC, Highline Contractors and three crews from the Asplundh Tree Service.

“Our thanks go to all the crews who helped,” said “Ohrt. “The line crew has a lot of work ahead to get our system back to its pre-July 11 condition. There are many poles to straighten, lines to tighten, and street lights to put up.”

REC costs

REC will be giving its customers an update in the newsletter that comes out next week. The costs of storm recovery for REC includes $250,000 in labor costs, $100,000 in transportation expenses, $322,575 for new poles and $110,000 for 50,000 feet of wire. Crews worked four consecutive 16-hour days to restore power to more than 3,200 affected customers.