Crews Working to Restore Power
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| Retha Colclasure |
| 7/9/2009 |
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| Linemen have been working around Dickinson and the surrounding areas all day, repairing miles upon miles of power lines that were damaged during last night`s storm. High winds snapped power line poles on Highway 8 north of Richardton. "It gets to be a lot of weight up there, the conductors catching wind, and nobody really knows but when one goes, it`s a domino effect `til you find the good tough one to stop it all," says Russell Walters, a lineman with Roughrider Electric. While none of the lines broke when the poles went down, power had to be shut off. And it can`t come back until everything`s fixed. "You gotta deal with the old first, then put up new. Sometimes working with the new is easier than dealing with the old, cause everything`s messed up, tangled up, and broken. It`s hard to take apart," Walters says. They`re working as quickly as they can, and here, they say, location is on their side. Crews say it`s easier to do this job in rural areas, rather than in a city, where there are traffic and onlookers to deal with. "A lot of the public gets in the way. We`re trying to get a job done, we`ve got trucks tied up. They`re in our way, take pictures. It`s just nice out here. We can get in where we gotta get and get our job done," says Doug Roethlisberger, a lineman with 3 C Construction. About a dozen people are working on this stretch of line. It`s work they know the customers appreciate. "It`s a gratifying deal when you know, you can look at all the damage done and you can come in here, put it up. It makes you feel good that when you`re done, the power goes back on, people get their lights on. It makes it nice," Roethlisberger says. And when they`re done here, these men are heading to Dickinson, where there are more people who need power. Crews have a little bit of experience with this particular stretch of power line. It had to be replaced about four years ago, after another storm brought down a mile of poles. |
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