|
|
Residents of Cook County lost their power at about 9:30 p.m. on Friday, March 25, as a windstorm battered the county, with winds recorded as high as 66 mph.
The power was restored to the City of Grand Marais around 2:30 a.m.
“Great River Energy had a tree hit the line and the entire county went dark,” said Arrowhead Cooperative CEO/General Manager John Twiest.
“Our crews were out until about 5:00 a.m. then went back out a couple hours later to clean up a few stragglers,” added Twiest. The Cook County Law Enforcement Center was inundated with calls.
“There were many calls but only six of them are documented in our system,” said Cook County Sheriff Pat Eliasen.
“The dispatchers get severely overwhelmed and each of the calls does not get recorded. There are no calls regarding downed trees, and we do not know if lines were down or not. Due to the wave of calls, and all of them concerning power outages, there is really no way for the lone dispatcher to document each of them.”
Meanwhile, in Grand Marais residents waited for the city’s five-megawatt backup power plant generator to kick on and restore power to businesses and residents. Unfortunately, the back-up generator isn’t in working order right now, needing the “reclosure” to be repaired. This device allows the diesel power plant generated electricity to the substation that feeds power to the city.
Plans are to receive a new reclosure on April 20 and have Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Association send workers to install the device. If all goes right the back-up power plant will be fully operational sometime in early May.
Leave a Reply