News

1/22/2010

Co-Mo linemen helping Iowa cooperative recover from ice storm

Tipton, Mo (Jan. 22, 2010) — Four Co-Mo Electric linemen are helping a small Iowa cooperative recover from a crippling ice storm that knocked out power to more than half its members Wednesday.

The four linemen arrived in Guthrie Center, Iowa, early Friday morning and are currently assisting Guthrie County Rural Electric Cooperative in its effort to rebuild a system ravaged by ice measured at least six inches deep in some spots.

“We’ve got 200 to 300 poles down,” said Jim Terwilliger, line supervisor of the small cooperative about an hour west of Des Moines on Friday morning.

The cooperative of 4,500 households had about 2,500 still without power on Friday, Terwilliger said. 

Co-Mo’s four linemen provide a more than 33 percent boost to Guthrie’s crew of 11 who have been working nearly around the clock since the ice storm hit a large portion of the state Wednesday.

Chuck Tuttle, maintenance manager for Co-Mo Electric, said he expects the crew to be in Iowa for up to a week, putting in 12- to 16-hour days to help the rural Iowa community. It’s in keeping with the values under which cooperatives work that led Co-Mo to jump into action when the need became evident.

“One of the seven cooperative principles is cooperation among cooperatives,” Tuttle said. “When there’s a disaster that creates a need to get the electricity for cooperative members back on somewhere, those members become our members.”

Co-Mo linemen throughout the cooperative’s seven-decade history have helped throughout the country, most notably in the massive effort to restore power in the Gulf region following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The Co-Mo linemen are going to be getting some help from Mother Nature in Iowa. Temperatures in Guthrie Center are expected to reach above freezing today through Sunday.

“Hopefully that’ll help the ice on our lines fall off and prevent further damage,” Terwilliger said.

But the damage already done will leave many of Gurthrie’s members in the dark for up to seven days.

“The weight of ice on power lines and on trees that then fall into power lines is a very destructive force,” said Ken Johnson, Co-Mo’s general manager/CEO. “We’re glad to be able to help Guthrie Center, and our prayers go out to the cooperative’s members and employees.

Guthrie County Rural Electric Cooperative has been in business since June 16, 1937. It provides power to businesses, industries, farms and homes in all or portions of Adair, Audubon, Cass, Dallas, Greene and Guthrie counties. It also provides electrical power to one municipal government, the city of Panora.

Other area cooperatives are helping out in Iowa as well. Boone Electric Cooperative sent eight linemen to Glidden, Iowa, to assist there. Two four-man crews are helping restore power to approximately 1,700 Raccoon Valley Electric Cooperative members. More than 12,500 electric cooperative members are without power across the western half of Iowa, where three-quarters to one inch of ice accumulated on trees and power lines.

Currently, 82 linemen from 18 Missouri cooperatives are in Iowa helping restore power.

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