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East River Assists Members Restore Power

A winter storm which began Jan. 22 left its mark across the East River service territory with heavy ice accumulations and strong winds knocking down distribution poles and making power restoration challenging in some areas due to near whiteout conditions.

At its height, over 15,000 rural electric customers were without power throughout the state.

The East River system experienced numerous breaker operations, broken crossarms, phase conductors and insulators, but no broken poles according to Jim Edwards, AGM-Operations.

“We were fortunate to withstand the brunt of the storm upon our system,” Edwards said. “Because of this, we were able to dispatch crews to members in need of additional linemen.”

East River crews assisted Dakota Energy and FEM Electric to restore power to members. South Dakota National Guard personnel also assisted in the restoration effort, providing payloaders to move snow in heavily drifted areas so cooperative crews could facilitate system repairs.

FEM Manager Scott Moore expressed the importance of cooperatives helping cooperatives during outage restoration. “Without the assistance of outside crews our members would not see electricity for months. We are moving forward with restoration efforts and appreciate all the work East River crews have done to get the transmission lines back up to the substations serving FEM Electric members, also assisting FEM rebuild our distribution lines to our members.”

East River General Manager Jeff Nelson shared his appreciation for the commitment displayed by East River personnel. “As always, the conditions under which restoration work occurs is challenging to say the least.  Despite these conditions East River’s workforce again rose to the occasion.  I value all the efforts which achieved this result.”