Storm leaves a mess

BY PAUL AYARS
THE COURIER

Power outages this morning to more than 1,000 Logan and Mason County electric customers could continue into the weekend, according to spokesmen for two area utilities.

"It’s still too soon to say" when all service will be restored, AmericanCILCO spokesman Tim Fox said. "Obviously, crews are out working."

On the heels of an aggressive snow storm that punished the area Wednesday, AmerenCILCO was getting assistance in repairing damage to their distribution network from more than 100 southwestern Missouri electricians.

Storm shelters set up late Wednesday at Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital and Zion Lutheran School cleared out by Thanksgiving Day afternoon after serving nearly 100 travelers that were stranded by the pre-winter storm.

Wednesday’s snow knocked out a Mount Pulaski substation serving several hundred customers in Mount Pulaski and Chestnut. A 34,500-volt line into the substation was also knocked down by gusty winds and heavy snows.

"Ice and snow on power lines, combined with high winds, gave us a nasty situation over the holiday," Fox said.

Lynn Frasco, general manager of Menard Electric Cooperative, which serves some rural areas in Logan and Mason counties, said crews today were contending with 40 broken utility poles and 100 places where power lines were down.

Four crews from other Illinois electric cooperatives plus four tree- trimming crews were working along side Menard linemen.

"We are hopeful that all service will be restored to all our members by sometime Saturday," Frasco said.

Kenny and Sharon Bell of rural Lincoln had plans to host a Thanksgiving family dinner at their home in Pheasant Ridge, a subdivision along Illinois 10 two miles west of Lincoln that’s served by AmerenCILCO.

The storm forced them to cancel the dinner.

"I just sat around all day and kept putting gas in my generator," said Bell. "I guess we’ll try to have our dinner Saturday."

The Bells and other residents of their rural neighborhood finally got power restored around 8:45 a.m. today.

A neighbor, Tim Hicks, described his Thanksgiving as "not a whole lot of fun. We’re just praying power stays on now."

Lois McCormick of Chestnut, another community served by AmerenCILCO, said she and her husband Norman ate breakfast Thanksgiving Day in Clinton and had their holiday dinner at Norman’s son’s home in Riverton. Mrs. McCormick had planned to cook dinner for her family.

Instead, without electricity, she packed food in snow to keep it cold.

"We can still count our blessings," she said, even though the McCormicks still were without power through mid-morning today after their storm outage started at 2:15 p.m. Wednesday.

Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital housed 55 stranded travelers in their basement overnight Wednesday. Zion Lutheran School housed 33 othertravelers that night – some from as far away as Mountain Home, Ark.

Three infants were among those in the hospital shelter, said Dolan Dalpoas, the hospital’s assistant administrator and quality director. A greyhound traveling with one family was sheltered in the hospital garage that night, Dalpoas said.

"A lot of people from the hospital pitched in," serving the 10 to 12 families, he said.

Kirk Huettl, Lincoln National Weather Service center meteorologist, said storm damage included a report of tree limbs down at 7:45 p.m. Wednesday.

The Peoria Manual basketball team, in town Wednesday for a Lincoln tournament, spent the night at Lincoln College.

The Zion shelter was opened when Principal Steve Schumacher happened to be in the lobby at the Holiday Inn Express after school Wednesday afternoon and heard desk clerks telling stranded motorists there were no motel rooms left in town.

Schumacher then opened the school for people to stay.

One elderly couple had been in a ditch for 5 1/2 hours before coming to the Zion school shelter.

Red Cross volunteers served breakfast Thursday morning for people who had stayed in the school and ALMH shelters.

"Literally hundreds of miles of power lines were down in the country," Dan Fulscher, Logan County Emergency Services Disaster Agency director, said this morning. "Let’s hope most of the people have their power back on tonight."

Wednesday’s storm kept emergency services busy, too.

Lincoln Rural firefighters responded with Logan County Paramedics to four accidents involving minor injuries on Interstates 55 and 155 during Wednesday’s storm.

Shortly before 1 p.m., rural firefighters responded with Emden volunteer rescue workers after a car slid off I-155 near the Hartsburg exit.

At 1:50 p.m. they responded to an I-55 accident south of Lincoln after a 22-year-old St. Cloud, Minn., woman lost control of her Pontiac Grand Am, hit a tractor-trailer and sustained minor injuries.

She was taken by ambulance to Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital.

A Wisconsin woman and a Peoria woman also were taken to ALMH and treated for minor injuries they suffered Wednesday night after each driver lost control of their vehicles and struck guard rails at mile markers 126 and 129 of I-55.

Firefighters also secured areas where wet snow forced power lines down in the 900 block of 1575th Street shortly after 10 a.m. Wednesday and in the 1400 block of 1950th Street at 7:18 a.m. Thursday.

Downed power lines brought city firefighters out to secure locations in the 300 block of Ninth Street at 3:20 p.m. Wednesday and, again Thursday night in the 1900 block of North Kickapoo Street and the 1300 block of Rutledge Drive.