scamper
12-08-2005, 08:47 AM
Winter storm cleanup project begins
By Joe Kafka, Associated Press Writer
PIERRE — Hoping it will ease the burden on utility workers struggling to restore power, state officials started a pilot project Wednesday to clean up power poles and wires damaged by a post-Thanksgiving storm that crippled much of eastern South Dakota.
Tom Dravland, state public safety secretary, said the work began in the Huron and Mitchell areas.
Cleanup crews include state Transportation Department employees, prison inmates, the National Guard and utility company representatives.
It is estimated that more than 10,000 power poles were broken or damaged by heavy coatings of ice. High winds and large snowdrifts compounded the destruction and complicated efforts to restore power.
More than half of the 309 communities in the state either lost all electricity or had some power disruptions. Officials believe that the damage is the worst ever to the state electrical system.
Only the tiny towns of Manchester and Cuthbert were still without power early Wednesday. Dravland said about 3,700 electric meters also were out of service in rural areas.
Although utility crews continue making headway, the going will be slower in the next few days because remaining outages involve widely scattered customers, Audry Ricketts, general manager of South Dakota Rural Electric Association, said.
“The easy stuff has come on, and now it becomes the tough stuff,” she said. “It’s where you’re building 10 miles of line to get to a consumer.”
Gov. Mike Rounds said the state project to clear storm debris from ditches will help utility workers finish the job of restoring all power. Initially, there were two 16-person cleanup crews, he said. Others will be added as utility workers continue to make progress, the governor said.
“Our goal is to work with the utility companies and pick up downed poles and wires in state, county and township rights of way after new ones are in place,” Rounds said. “This partnership allows utilities to focus solely on getting heat and electricity restored while the state ... provides immediate temporary assistance in hauling away debris left from the storm.”
Even cleaning ditches will take time, Judy Payne, state transportation secretary, said.
“Realistically, one crew will be able to clear about two miles, or an average of 36 poles, a day,” she said.
Snowmobilers should avoid rights of way because of the hazards, Payne said. All motorists should use caution near utility workers and those picking up debris, she said.
Dravland said state employees continue making phone calls to check on people in the storm area. Many of those who lost electrical service are using generators to provide power, he said.
People who have been running generators for the past 10 days should not neglect maintenance on those machines, Dravland said. He said the state received a few reports of generators that stopped because of extended use without any servicing.
Todd Heitkamp of the National Weather Service said a break in the cold weather is likely, beginning Friday.
“We’re going to have our own little-fashioned tropical heat wave moving into eastern South Dakota by the weekend,” he said.
As the weather warms, power outages could occur if overhead lines that are still coated with heavy ice start banging together, Scott Parsley of East River Electric Cooperative in Madison said. It may be necessary to temporarily shut down some electrical substations to avoid those problems, he said.
“The lines are very close together right now because of the weight that they’re carrying,” Parsley said. “If one line loses its ice and springs back up and hits another line, we can have (circuit) breaker operations, or worse, the lines will actually burn down,” Parsley said.
U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who toured some of the affected areas, said he had never seen a storm that knocked out electricity to so many.
In addition to leaving many homes without heat, the power loss shut down gas pumps, curtailed delivery of fresh water and cut connections to cell-phone towers, he said.
“It’s a reminder of how reliant we are on our electric power,” Johnson said Wednesday.
The governor has asked President Bush to declare a disaster in 25 counties, and Johnson said federal officials have not indicated how long that decision will take.
Extreme cold in the past few days has not only complicated efforts to restore power in rural areas but has caused some spot shortages of diesel fuel, Dravland said. Pipelines that serve the eastern part of the state have been caught without enough No. 1 diesel fuel, he said.
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2005/12/08/news/state/state01.txt
Its been a week now and there are still towns without power, the temp has been below zero or close to it the whole time, but no one around here is bitching because people here realize that help takes time, it doesn't matter what color your skin is.
On the other hand....
• Racism blamed for Katrina response
Dec. 6: Black survivors of Hurricane Katrina say at a congressional hearing that racism contributed to the slow disaster response. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports.
Nightly News
NEW ORLEANS - In New Orleans, according to a Gallup poll, six in 10 blacks said if most of hurricane Katrina’s victims were white the rescues would have come faster.
"The people of New Orleans were stranded in a flood and were allowed to die," said New Orleans resident Leah Hodges Tuesday before a bipartisan congressional committee in Washington. "What happened to us was foreseeable and preventable."
"Who comes rescue with guns, no life vests?" asked fellow Katrina victim Dyan Cole French.
To these victims, it was all about race.
"I think if it was not poor African-Americans who would be affected by this, there would have been a plan in place," said Katrina victim Doreen Keeler. "There would have been equipment in place. There would have been everything needed in place."
Those perceptions were apparent to the White House almost immediately. In his Sept. 12 speech in New Orleans, President Bush said, "The storm didn't discriminate and neither will we in the recovery effort."
But, 100 days later, New Orleans residents are still furious.
"I blame local. I blame state. I blame federal," said Keeler. "I think we got disappointed by every rank of government that exists."
Those feelings remain strong in the Lower Ninth Ward, where a lack of any progress is also blamed on racial politics.
"I come representing the people sitting on Derjunois Street right now, around a brick-made fireplace because that's the only heat we have in December," Cole French told the panel. "The hurricane happened in August!"
Meanwhile, in neighboring Mississippi, FEMA e-mails released Monday show top officials recognized their inability to get water and ice to victims.
One e-mail, sent three days after the storm, says if only limited supplies arrive, "we will have serious riots."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10354018/from/RSS/
By Joe Kafka, Associated Press Writer
PIERRE — Hoping it will ease the burden on utility workers struggling to restore power, state officials started a pilot project Wednesday to clean up power poles and wires damaged by a post-Thanksgiving storm that crippled much of eastern South Dakota.
Tom Dravland, state public safety secretary, said the work began in the Huron and Mitchell areas.
Cleanup crews include state Transportation Department employees, prison inmates, the National Guard and utility company representatives.
It is estimated that more than 10,000 power poles were broken or damaged by heavy coatings of ice. High winds and large snowdrifts compounded the destruction and complicated efforts to restore power.
More than half of the 309 communities in the state either lost all electricity or had some power disruptions. Officials believe that the damage is the worst ever to the state electrical system.
Only the tiny towns of Manchester and Cuthbert were still without power early Wednesday. Dravland said about 3,700 electric meters also were out of service in rural areas.
Although utility crews continue making headway, the going will be slower in the next few days because remaining outages involve widely scattered customers, Audry Ricketts, general manager of South Dakota Rural Electric Association, said.
“The easy stuff has come on, and now it becomes the tough stuff,” she said. “It’s where you’re building 10 miles of line to get to a consumer.”
Gov. Mike Rounds said the state project to clear storm debris from ditches will help utility workers finish the job of restoring all power. Initially, there were two 16-person cleanup crews, he said. Others will be added as utility workers continue to make progress, the governor said.
“Our goal is to work with the utility companies and pick up downed poles and wires in state, county and township rights of way after new ones are in place,” Rounds said. “This partnership allows utilities to focus solely on getting heat and electricity restored while the state ... provides immediate temporary assistance in hauling away debris left from the storm.”
Even cleaning ditches will take time, Judy Payne, state transportation secretary, said.
“Realistically, one crew will be able to clear about two miles, or an average of 36 poles, a day,” she said.
Snowmobilers should avoid rights of way because of the hazards, Payne said. All motorists should use caution near utility workers and those picking up debris, she said.
Dravland said state employees continue making phone calls to check on people in the storm area. Many of those who lost electrical service are using generators to provide power, he said.
People who have been running generators for the past 10 days should not neglect maintenance on those machines, Dravland said. He said the state received a few reports of generators that stopped because of extended use without any servicing.
Todd Heitkamp of the National Weather Service said a break in the cold weather is likely, beginning Friday.
“We’re going to have our own little-fashioned tropical heat wave moving into eastern South Dakota by the weekend,” he said.
As the weather warms, power outages could occur if overhead lines that are still coated with heavy ice start banging together, Scott Parsley of East River Electric Cooperative in Madison said. It may be necessary to temporarily shut down some electrical substations to avoid those problems, he said.
“The lines are very close together right now because of the weight that they’re carrying,” Parsley said. “If one line loses its ice and springs back up and hits another line, we can have (circuit) breaker operations, or worse, the lines will actually burn down,” Parsley said.
U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who toured some of the affected areas, said he had never seen a storm that knocked out electricity to so many.
In addition to leaving many homes without heat, the power loss shut down gas pumps, curtailed delivery of fresh water and cut connections to cell-phone towers, he said.
“It’s a reminder of how reliant we are on our electric power,” Johnson said Wednesday.
The governor has asked President Bush to declare a disaster in 25 counties, and Johnson said federal officials have not indicated how long that decision will take.
Extreme cold in the past few days has not only complicated efforts to restore power in rural areas but has caused some spot shortages of diesel fuel, Dravland said. Pipelines that serve the eastern part of the state have been caught without enough No. 1 diesel fuel, he said.
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2005/12/08/news/state/state01.txt
Its been a week now and there are still towns without power, the temp has been below zero or close to it the whole time, but no one around here is bitching because people here realize that help takes time, it doesn't matter what color your skin is.
On the other hand....
• Racism blamed for Katrina response
Dec. 6: Black survivors of Hurricane Katrina say at a congressional hearing that racism contributed to the slow disaster response. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports.
Nightly News
NEW ORLEANS - In New Orleans, according to a Gallup poll, six in 10 blacks said if most of hurricane Katrina’s victims were white the rescues would have come faster.
"The people of New Orleans were stranded in a flood and were allowed to die," said New Orleans resident Leah Hodges Tuesday before a bipartisan congressional committee in Washington. "What happened to us was foreseeable and preventable."
"Who comes rescue with guns, no life vests?" asked fellow Katrina victim Dyan Cole French.
To these victims, it was all about race.
"I think if it was not poor African-Americans who would be affected by this, there would have been a plan in place," said Katrina victim Doreen Keeler. "There would have been equipment in place. There would have been everything needed in place."
Those perceptions were apparent to the White House almost immediately. In his Sept. 12 speech in New Orleans, President Bush said, "The storm didn't discriminate and neither will we in the recovery effort."
But, 100 days later, New Orleans residents are still furious.
"I blame local. I blame state. I blame federal," said Keeler. "I think we got disappointed by every rank of government that exists."
Those feelings remain strong in the Lower Ninth Ward, where a lack of any progress is also blamed on racial politics.
"I come representing the people sitting on Derjunois Street right now, around a brick-made fireplace because that's the only heat we have in December," Cole French told the panel. "The hurricane happened in August!"
Meanwhile, in neighboring Mississippi, FEMA e-mails released Monday show top officials recognized their inability to get water and ice to victims.
One e-mail, sent three days after the storm, says if only limited supplies arrive, "we will have serious riots."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10354018/from/RSS/