51,000 in Q-C without power

By Tom Saul | Tuesday, July 22, 2008

About 51,000 MidAmerican Energy customers in the Quad-Cities remained without power at about 9:30 a.m. as utility imported workers from eight states to clear trees and branches, repair poles and restring power lines.

MidAmerican expects to have 750 workers on the job throughout the area by this afternoon, said Ann Thelen, company spokesman. Most customers should have power restored within 48 hours, but pockets of customers may not see electrical service restored until Thursday or Friday.

“We’re following a utility strategy protocol where we repair more critical areas first,” Thelen said. “If there is an area with 3,000 customers out, versus one with 30 out, we will restore the area with the most customers first.”

During the peak of the power outages from the storm, there were 135,000 Quad-Cities area customers without power, Thelen said. Utility crews have been working to restore power to many, but downed trees and limbs continue to present a big problem. There is also the issue of broken power poles that need to be replaced.

Additional repair crews are coming in from as far away as Kentucky, Michigan and Nebraska as well as from states on Iowa’s eastern and southern borders. Thelen said