SIDNEY — Nearly tornadic wind gusts knocked out power in the southeast part of Sidney Thursday, March 14, according to DP&L.
Straight-line wind gusts reached more than 50 mph for bursts of about 10 minutes causing rain to come down sideways in the Sidney area, Mary Ann Kabel, DP&L director of corporate communications said she learned. A total of 1424 customers lost power within a large circumference around the southeast part of Sidney, she said.
“When wind gusts are blowing over 40 mph, we see the potential of tree branches pulling on powerlines and poles snapping,” said Kabel. “(The storm) started at 4:40 p.m., and we actually had two large lines that went out. And it wasn’t poles in this area. It was two large trees that had fallen on our overhead lines, specifically on two very large branch lines. One that served 976 people, and one that served 448 customers.”
In addition to the DP&L crews, city of Sidney workers also responded to the power outage on the report several trees that were blown down in the city, said Gary Clough, assistant city manager/public works director.
“There were about six to eight trees that came down in the road that we responded to immediately and cut down,” Clough said. “One tree fell on a power line. But no poles came down. We also had to make sure the traffic signals were working OK.”
“The time relating to that restoration had to do with having to de-energize the (power) line, re-route what traffic we could, have a tree crew come out and take a large tree off the line and get it out of the way so they could make the repairs,” Kabel said. “The tree branches were so large they took down the wires and they needed a tree crew to come in and remove them.”
The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office also received six calls concerning downed trees or power lines in the county.
Power was restored for all Sidney area customers at 10:47 p.m.
