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ELY- Cold weather was the apparent cause of a power line break that cut power to over 2,300 households in the area, during a period when temperatures had dipped to the mid-20 degrees below zero. …
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ELY- Cold weather was the apparent cause of a power line break that cut power to over 2,300 households in the area, during a period when temperatures had dipped to the mid-20 degrees below zero.
Officials with Lake Country Power said the break occurred at a splice in a 46-kilovolt transmission line at the western edge of Ely.
“The splice was the point of failure … where the tight wires pulled apart,” said Derek Howe, director of operations for Lake Country Power. The minus 20-degree weather was a factor, he said, since intense cold causes metal to contract.
The break cut power to two Lake Country substations, at Winton and Clear Lake, affecting customers as far away as rural Tower and Embarrass as well as Fall Lake and Morse. The break also affected customers of Minnesota Power, cutting electrical service to Tower and Soudan as well as approximately 400 homes in Ely served by the city’s municipal utilities, which is supplied by Minnesota Power. The outage in Ely did not affect the entire town, with islands of power in places like on the 100 block of Pattison surrounded by no power on surrounding streets.
The line break occurred sometime after 3 a.m. Tuesday morning, about one-third of a mile west of the Dollar General store on Ely’s west end, where the line crosses Hwy. 169.
John Stodola of Hoyt Lakes, who drives an early morning delivery route, witnessed the downed line around 3:30 a.m. and called it into 911. He was eastbound into Ely but had to turn around to take County Road 88 (Grant McMahan Blvd.) to make his Ely deliveries.
“I believe I was the first on the scene,” Stodola told the Timberjay. “When I first got there, it was burning in the snow on the side of the road. After the police showed up, that’s when it started burning on the road.”
Power came back in Ely at 8:56 a.m., which delayed the opening of some businesses in the community. It also prompted the closure of the Vermilion Country School, in Tower. “We actually canceled school today because so many of our staff live in Ely and needed to stay home to try to keep their houses warm,” said school board chair Jodi Summit.
Ely power outage hit and miss
The early morning outage in Ely struck many as random, as one block would be blacked out while the next block never experienced an outage. Ely Clerk-Treasurer Harold Langowski noted that the city is served by two substations, designated as “A” and “B” and only A experienced a partial outage.
“It all depends on whether the alley behind your house is getting its power from substation A or B,” Langowski said. “But if you’re looking at the lights in the house across the street when you don’t have any power, then it can look random.”
Reckless driver sought
Langowski said he’d like to talk to the driver of a pickp who drove through a law enforcement blockade of Hwy. 169 set up around 3:30 a.m. That’s when a dark-colored Chevy truck drove through the blockade and over the still-burning power line.
“We’re looking for that vehicle. It was a newer pickup, three-quarter to one ton. It had flashing emergency lights in its windshield … I just want them to be aware of how close they came to probably losing their own life or causing somebody else to lose theirs.”
Langowski said the scene should have alerted anyone to the potential danger. “There were fireballs burning on the surface of the blacktop,” he said.
Stodola echoed Langowski’s take. “When I first got there, it was just burning on the side,” Stodola said. “Then this vehicle with flashing lights drove right over the line and that’s when it started burning on the road.”