The heavy snows that fell on Thursday, April 24 led to power outages throughout the county on Friday, April 25. There were outages along County Road 7 in Grand Marais, at Mid-Gunflint Trail and on the east end of the county.
John Twiest, Arrowhead Cooperative operations manager, said the majority of the outages were on the east end of the county. He said the cooperative received the first calls at about 3:45 a.m. reporting that the power was out on the Arrowhead Trail—and that there was about 14-16 inches of snow on the Arrowhead Trail.
Twiest said despite heavy winds, nearly all of the outages were caused by the snow. Few trees were down. There was a single tree on a line on North Road and another in Hovland, but the rest of the outages were caused by the dense, wet, snow on the lines.
Twiest said the snow built up and then as it melted the line snapped back up, causing the ground wire to hit the “hot” wire. That caused the cut-outs— the big fuses on the power poles—to blow.
Asked if it is challenging to find the location of an outage when it is not caused by a tree laying on a line, Twiest said not when there are only a few blown cut-outs. He said when the fuse blows, a door drops down and can be easily seen. To replace the fuse, linemen use an “extendo” stick to remove the defective fuse and install a new one.
However, during this latest storm, Arrowhead lineworkers replaced more than 30 fuses. “We had four guys out there, and me, going back and forth chasing problems,” said Twiest.
Many smaller power lines, serving houses off the main lines were affected. “The main lines stayed hot, so some people had power and some didn’t,” said Twiest. Some customers were without power for about eight hours.
“It’s good for members to call to report an outage,” Twiest said. The power company can let callers know right away if theirs is the only household without power. Twiest said in a larger outage, by noting where calls are coming from, the power company can pinpoint where the problem is.
He said during this outage, which kept the lineworkers out until 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, Customer Service Representative Rose Thoreson was back at the office taking calls. “She stayed until the ‘bitter end’ to take calls from community members,” said
Twiest.
Twiest added that the fact that snow, not falling trees, caused the majority of the outages shows that Arrowhead’s right-of-way clearing program is working well. “This is why we maintain our lines as wide as we do— not wider than we need, but enough to prevent outages in a storm like this. This is why we don’t have as many outages as in the past.
“I love trees as much as the next guy, but I love having my power on too,” said Twiest.
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