Blizzard Brings a Powerful Punch
Mother nature brought quite the surprise to Kansans on March 19, just a few hours after a beautiful 85-degree day. Snow and 70 mile per hour wind gusts closed highways and businesses and caused devastation to much of the western Kansas electric grid. Sunflower Electric, the Generation and Transmission provider for the western part of Kansas, suffered transmission line damage from Johnson City to Dodge City, while electric cooperatives, including Lane-Scott, experienced extensive outages, and equipment damage.
One of the primary causes of electrical damage during blizzard conditions are galloping lines. Galloping occurs when ice and snow stick to lines and strong wind gusts cause electrical lines to blow around and slap together. Two phases may get close enough to each other and cause breakers at substations to sense a short circuit between two phases and trip the line. When galloping gets really bad, it can cause poles to snap and lines and equipment to break.
Lane-Scott had approximately 2,400 meters without power at the peak of the storm and 13,247 total outage hours. The majority of outages and equipment damage was felt in Ness County including Ness City, Utica, Ransom, Brownell, Beeler, Bazine, and many rural areas of the county. Thirty poles along highway 96, west of Bazine, were broken. A Sunflower Electric transmission line outage affected our Twin Springs substation which serves members in parts of Finney and Hodgman counties.
“Outside of the actual damage to the lines, getting through drifted over county roads and ditches was probably the biggest challenge”, said Dal Hawkinson, Operations Manager. “We are very appreciative of the member farmers and the use of their tractors to get us through buried roads and to areas we would not have reached otherwise.”
As always, thanks to our amazing members for their words of encouragement and patience during restoration. Seeing messages of thanks and safety concern for our crews on our Facebook page and from those we called into the office are very much appreciated.
