2 weeks Ago By By Jeff Bahr [email protected]
The employees of Grand Island's Utilities Department have had their hands full lately, what with last week's big storm and now five members of the department helping out in the Fremont area. Last week's blizzard left close to half of Grand Island households without power on Wednesday. Then on Saturday, the Utilities Department sent five lineworkers to Fremont.
Grand Island Utilities Director Ryan Schmitz is proud of his department, including the workers who made the trip to Fremont. Workers were still busy Thursday in Grand Island, firming up the repairs they made in the midst of the storm the day before. It was a big request to ask the men to go help someone else after a couple of long days working in Grand Island, Schmitz said.
The Fremont area, which was hit even worse than Grand Island, was in dire straits, Schmitz said. The Grand Island Utilities team will probably be in the Fremont area until Friday. Making the trip were Logan Djernes, Trevor Post, Judd Garner, Garrett Porter and Milan Bish.
Last Wednesday, Schmitz said, 7,700 Grand Island homes were without electricity at some point during the storm. But the city now estimates that from 10,000 to 15,000 customers lost power in the blizzard. Grand Island Utilities serves a little more than 25,000 meters.
The first crew came in to work at 2 a.m. Wednesday, and the city had power restored to everyone's homes by 9 that night, "which was amazing," Schmitz said.
Great work was done by the department's line shop and dispatch center, he said. The dispatch center was led by Jeff Hiegel, and the line shop was led by Scott Bauer. Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed | SoundStack | All Of Our Podcasts "They did an amazing job of getting everything coordinated," Schmitz said.
The storm knocked out power to the city's well fields, "which could have been bad," he said. But workers had that power restored in 15 minutes. At one point, electricity was knocked out at Grand Island Regional Medical Center.
"And they worked hard to get that back as soon as possible," Schmitz said. Grand Island Regional had its power interrupted for about an hour. But the hospital does have a backup generator.
The work continued "in the thick of the blizzard," Schmitz said. Some utilities pulled in their workers because of poor visibility, "and our guys worked right through it. They stayed on it the whole time, which was pretty phenomenal.
" March snowstorms often bring wet snow. The biggest danger is the snow freezing to power lines, Schmitz said. Buildup on the lines accompanied by wind causes those lines to "gallop, and when (they) start galloping they slap together," Schmitz said.
"The load distribution weighs heavily on the poles, so a lot of times you'll get poles snapped." Four wires often run between poles. Three of those wires carry phases.
The fourth is neutral. "And those phases, if they slap together, it'll arc across. And that's when you have problems.
" Schmitz emphasized how proud he was of the dispatch center and the line and underground crews. In "recent years we've had a youth movement, I would say, in the line crew. And those guys (were) phenomenal," he said.
Grand Island Utilities Department workers will be honored at the April 15 City Council meeting..
