Even as residents of Wright County breathed a sigh of relief three weeks ago after escaping direct impacts of the now infamous “derecho,” some in our area were just gearing up. For several employees of the Clarion-based Prairie Energy Cooperative, the storm was a call to action. In the weeks after the storm, the local cooperative sent nine linemen across the state to help restore power to those affected.
The Monday, August 10 derecho swept across the Midwest with winds nearing 140 miles per hour in some places. In its wake was left damage exceeding billions of dollars and over a million people without power including more than 400,000 outages in Iowa alone. The Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives reported that “broken trees and limbs along with other windswept debris caused extensive damage to electric transmission and distribution systems throughout several counties with three electric cooperatives reporting at least 90% of their systems were offline.” It was clear that help would be needed to restore power.
Within hours of the storm, reinforcements were already being called for, including from Iowa’s Rural Electric Cooperatives (REC). Prairie Energy CEO Tim Marienau said there were already emails circulating Monday night. He adds that because electric cooperatives have a mutual aid agreement, they can efficiently call for help from other co-ops, whether it might be for extra linemen, engineers, additional operational staff or equipment.
When Prairie Energy Director of Operations and Engineering Ken Norem sent out a text asking for help from the local linemen, he was not surprised that everyone was willing to go. “Anytime there has been a call for help, we always get volunteers,” Norem said.
Over the next few weeks, Prairie Energy sent several linemen to assist in restoring power, with the first crew leaving the morning after the storm. Those four headed to Grundy County REC. Two more left later that week to be based out of T.I.P. REC in Brooklyn, IA. Finally, in an unprecedented move, three linemen went to help Alliant Energy per a request from the governor, the Iowa Utilities Board and the state electric co-op association. Norem commented that this is the first time he remembers the mutual aid agreement being extended to a non-co-op utility provider.
The linemen who stepped up to help definitely had their work cut out for them. Nick Dennler, one of the local linemen who helped restore power to Alliant customers, said, “There was damage on all levels. Poles were snapped off, lines were damaged, trees were cutting roads off.” The Prairie Energy crews went to work in both urban and rural areas to restore power, whether it was working in tight alleys at people’s homes or repairing poles in the Iowa countryside.
No matter where they went to help, the workers were all astonished by the amount of damage they saw. Wes Held, a lineman who also worked with Alliant, said, “You couldn’t find a grain bin that was still standing.” Kevin Rotschafer, another Prairie Energy lineman, who has done this type of work for over 40 years, admitted, “This was as bad as Katrina.” He had traveled to Mississippi in 2005 to help restore power after the hurricane. Now, he said the tree damage he saw in central Iowa in the days after the derecho was akin to a hurricane. Rotschafer, who went with the crew that left the day after the derecho, added, “We were working in tough conditions because they hadn’t cleared the trees when we got there.”
The Prairie Energy crews definitely put their time in. They were gone anywhere from several days to over a week, depending on the location. Dennler said they would work anywhere from 16 to 17 hours a day, getting only about four hours of sleep after winding down. Jared Hannasch who worked in a broad area from Toledo and Tama to Brooklyn, said his crew was at it from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Hannasch and the other linemen admit that the work was physically taxing, and they were more than sore at the end of the days. Yet, most of the guys chalked the experience up to part of the job. “It’s just what we do,” said Dennler. “We turn the lights on.”
All the linemen who volunteered said the long hours and fatigue were worth it to help those impacted. They reported that people were beyond happy to see them in most cases after having been without power for several days or weeks. Dennler noted, “People were really thankful. Kids cheered when we pulled up in our trucks. There were even people crying they were so happy. Having lights is one step towards normalcy for people in that situation, so we’re glad to help.”
The men said that people were so appreciative that they were often offered water and snacks. Held commented, “We were getting so much food offered to us that we had to start turning it down!”
Norem added that he was proud of the local crews helping in an unprecedented situation. “This just is not something you can engineer for. If it were us, we would have wanted the help too.”
In the weeks since the storm, power has been restored to the majority of people and businesses. However, that does not mean the work is done for everyone. Norem said that one could expect the derecho’s damage and electrical impacts to extend well into the future. He predicted that the different power providers will likely be finding issues months or even years to come.
So, even though the Prairie Energy crews are back home, they stand ready. Though they might not see another event as devastating as the derecho for a long while, they are prepared to go when and where they are needed.
