by Mari Radtke
Friday February 28 brought a power outage to areas of Cherokee and O’Brien Counties. Power stopped flowing to Paullina, Sutherland, Calumet, Larrabee and other parts of Cherokee County 6:37pm, according to Angela Catton, NIPCO spokesperson. Geoff Greenwood, Media Relations Manager for MidAmerican Energy in an email, “This incident had a few extra layers to it because it affected three power providers, including MidAmerican, Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative (NIPCO) and Paullina Municipal Utility. And that’s because, in various ways, portions of our systems are interconnected in this area.”
Kelly Top, Paullina Superintendent of Utilities explained that a suspension bell on what he called a transmission line owned by Paullina was dislodged and opened a circuit. Catton said, “The cause of the blackout was due to vibrations from high winds.” Top described the damage as a bolt from the top crossbar of a power pole came loose. He said, “The suspension bell fell on the line below. That caused a short from phase to phase which knocked everything out.”
The outage began at 6:37pm by both MidAmerican and NIPCO sources. Top was notified almost immediately by NIPCO personnel of the outage. Paullina staff drove the lines, looking for a source of the outage.
The fallen suspension bell was located on a pole a half mile west of Highway 59 at 460th Street between Sorrell and Starling Avenues. Once found, repair work began. According to Catten, two NIPCO crews assisted the Paullina crew to repair the Paullina owned distribution equipment. The connected areas were as far away as the MEC-owned Meriden substation.
The 880 MidAmerican customers all had their power restored by 8:15pm. Power was restored to Paullina customers at 10:02pm.