Silhouette

Issue date: 1/18/07 Section: Front Page

Media Credit: Nick Snyder Electrical Disaster: Along Highway 50, Sunflower Electric's metal towers buckled due to the weight added during the recent ice storm. Sunflower Electric had 21 metal towers down after the storm leaving approximately 36,000 customers without electricity from one to 11 days.

Media Credit: Cassie Rupp Blanket of ice: Approximately two inches of ice clung to inanimate items early Friday morning, Dec. 29, after Southwest Kansas received heavy snow and rain.

Finney County, along with much of the Midwest, are still experiencing power failure after an ice storm hit winter break.

"Most of our damage was in Finney County," Phillip Shelley, director of operations at Wheatland Electric Coop Inc., said. "In our whole system, we had about 9,000 poles down."

Due to the massive amounts of damage, Shelley said the Wheatland Electric Coop will continue repairs for as long as it takes.

"We'll be working on it for about two years. We have about 750 miles of damage, which is thousands of poles," Shelley said. "They're leaning, broken or the lines are down. We have a 400 foot radio tower in Syracuse that will take months to repair."

GCCC also experienced setbacks with the recent storm.

"The main problem was the electricity going on and off," Steve Quakenbush, director of information services and publications, said. "It [loss of electricity] did create some problems with the computers."

Because the computers were not shut down appropriately, campus servers experienced problems.

"When the power goes down, everything goes down," Mary Wilson, director of information technology, said. "They [servers] weren't taken down properly. Like when you shut down the computer with the power button. We didn't anticipate the storm, if we had, we would have taken them [servers and computers] down for emergency purposes. Unfortunately, it was over break and the staff was scattered."

Wilson said the college faired better than most during the storm.

"We were very fortunate. I know of people who lost everything electronic in their house," Wilson said. "It's worse on them [electronics] when the power comes back on. If it does go off, you want to start unplugging things."

Despite problems with the computers, Wilson said most of it has been solved.

"Everything is pretty much solved except one piece of software, Web Adviser, which is accessed off campus," Wilson said.

Along with other problems encountered on campus, some occurred outside.

"We had roof leaks from the ice in about every building," Mike Cruz, grounds supervisor, said. "Some trees suffered some damage, limbs broke off, but they were on bigger trees so they should be okay."

Garden City streets remained ice-packed after the storm, however few problems were created.

"During the ice storm there were only six reported motor accidents and no injuries," Capt. Mike Utz, said. "Our dispatch center took thousands of calls about power outages and directed them where to call."

Shelley said the ice storm was a learning experience for all, including the electric companies.

"I'm happy to say our customers were helpful and understanding," Shelley said. "This type of storm only comes around every 40 or 50 years."

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