Manager's Report
It Takes a Village...
Well, what can I say – on Jan. 19, the Ice Storm of a Century (I hope) hit us. Crews went 17 days straight (logging anywhere from 15 to 18 hours per day) up to last Friday night, Feb. 5, to get 99.9 percent of our residential members back on – what a miraculous feat.
Outside crew members totaled somewhere around 160 extra people. Co-op family who came to our rescue: Black Hills Electric, Butte Electric, Cherry-Todd Electric, West Central Electric, West River Electric from South Dakota and Connexus and East Central Electric from Minnesota. Contractors included: Midwest Power Inc., Keller Construction, Aevenia and Karian Peterson contractors from Minnesota and Michels Power from Wisconsin. Mitchell Technical Institute sent eight students who got the experience of a lifetime. SDREA sent Karla Steele – she was in my words, “an organizer deluxe.” She checked all crew members in – taking care of the necessary paperwork, made arrangements for rooms, meals, you name it. Understand, not only did we lose electricity, but also water to a large part of our service area which further complicated the accommodations for crews. Several local individuals opened up their homes.
In addition to the National Guard for snow removal, we had numerous contractors. Snow removal Coordination was a must for each set of crews working and a huge part of the restoration process along with aerial viewing of the damage by helicopter (thanks to Jake and Tyrone Kraft). Their documentation on maps aided in ordering materials and planning for the next day’s work.
Material ordering and delivery was another extremely critical component to the success of the restoration. Delivery trucks literally ran 24/7 to meet the demands. Jerry Keller is the hero in this arena. Early on in the storm, I called West Central Electric who sent their retired material clerk to help Jerry with the organizing and
delivery of material once it arrived. Our vendors literally became family.
The communities united and cooked a hot breakfast, made sack lunches and provided a hot supper for the tired, hard-working labor force. Kendra Enright and Lois Bartlett headed this effort but I know the list of volunteers and donations goes beyond my imagination or knowledge at this point. Their efforts contributed to the success of our mission – not one complaint did we hear – only compliments. Howdoes one say THANK YOU enough? I heard a number of some 5,000 meals served. Thanks to Country Market (John and Patty Linderman) for their 24-hour delivery of food supplies.
As for damage, we are still assessing. Our estimate is 3,000 plus poles. In this calculation, approximately seven miles of transmission line (the backbone of a system). Of course, we have numerous well accounts still lying on the ground.
The statement I’ve made so many times, ‘our employees are our BIGGEST ASSET’ could never be truer. The success of this mission did not rest solely on one person, but on every single employee involved – from answering the phones, to physically repairing the damages; it literally did take a village to make this happen.
God Bless our employees, all the outside dedicated workers who came to our rescue and God Bless our members who endured the trauma.
Until next month…
