A fast-moving ice storm that arrived with a vengeance knocked out power to thousands of Bartholomew County residents and gave area students their first snow day of the school year.
The storm that arrived late Wednesday night led to more than 50 reports of trees down and wires in the roadway, keeping power crews and city and county police busy most of Thursday morning. Storm-related calls continued throughout the day.
As many as 9,000 Duke Energy customers in Columbus and Brown County shivered their way through the early morning when they woke up to find power out in their homes. By mid-morning Thursday, Duke reported that number was down to about 5,000 customers without power, but the outage number continued to fluctuate as trees and limbs continued to fall on power lines and create more outages, said Chip Orben, Duke Energy government and community relations manager.
By mid-afternoon, the number of Duke customers without power was down to 3,900 in Bartholomew and Brown counties, but that number also represented 159 different reports of outages, meaning the utility still had a large amount of work to do, Orben said.
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Power-restoration times were not being given on Thursday as the work continued, and crews who had been on for 16 straight hours were sent home to sleep while additional workers were brought in as their replacements, Orben said. That includes crews from Duke’s operations in the Carolinas, he said. Crews were scheduled to work through Thursday night into this morning in the hopes of having power restored to all customers soon, he said.
Overall, more than 100,000 Duke Energy customers lost power in Indiana. Duke restored power to all but 43,000 of those customers across the state by Thursday afternoon, Orben said.
Freezing rain that coated the Bartholomew County area overnight caused more damage to Duke’s electrical system than any other form of precipitation, Orben said.
Could have been worse
The Bartholomew County area received 3/10ths of an inch of ice, not a catastrophic amount, but significant, according to emergency management officials.
“We got lucky,” said Shannan Hinton, Bartholomew County Emergency Management director. “If we had wind with this, there would have been a much bigger problem — and many more trees would have been down.”
Duke Energy cautioned customers who have special needs or medical indicators that they may wish to make alternative arrangements in the event of an extended power outage caused by this storm.
Bartholomew County REMC was reporting about 992 customers without power at 10 a.m. Thursday, the majority in Columbus and Wayne townships. However that number inched up by 11 a.m., with 1,171 customers reporting power out, said Marty Lasure, REMC vice president of communications and member services.
The numbers were increasing as county residents began reporting more tree limbs and power lines down. Eight REMC crews were deployed in hard-hit township areas to be close to outages as they cropped up, Lasure said.
By mid-afternoon, REMC’s outage numbers were down significantly, with about 200 customers still without electricity, according to the utility’s website.
Lasure said those customers represented 23 different reports of power loss, and involved several calls about four-spans of wire down due to trees falling.
Power outages were in pockets throughout Columbus, but also widespread and somewhat random, Orben said, depending on locations of downed trees and the amount of ice that had fallen.
Power crews, some contracted by Duke, were working around the city in temperatures just above freezing to restore power, concentrating in areas around Candlelight Village on the north side, and on Columbus’ west side, west of Interstate 65.
Traffic-light outages
Some traffic lights were reported out early Thursday morning. Crossing intersections were staffed by Columbus police officers until four-way stop signs could be put in place, said Lt. Matt Harris, Columbus Police Department spokesman.
One road closing continued throughout the day Thursday, a report of power lines down at County Roads 300S and 600E in southeastern Bartholomew County, Hinton said.
Most roads in the city and county were primarily wet, with scattered slick spots on bridges and overpasses. A few fender-bender accidents were reported Thursday, but no major accidents involving injury were reported to police. Travel on I-65 continued without interruption, although there were a few slideoffs on the interstate as the storm moved in Wednesday night.
By morning, temperatures were above freezing and Hinton’s prediction that any anticipated snowfall Thursday would fall as rain proved to be correct.
At least two local radio stations were knocked off the air for about two-and-half hours early Thursday morning before dawn. They were QMIX 107.3 and MOJO 102.9, said Mark Allen, operations manager for Reising Radio Partners, owner of the stations.
“You can’t control Mother Nature,” Allen said. “You just have to sit and wait.”
School closings
Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. canceled school at 5 a.m. Thursday, citing icy conditions.
Superintendent Jim Roberts, in a statement on social media to BCSC families, said although many roads were in decent shape despite the ice the area received, three BCSC elementary buildings were without power early Thursday morning, and two more elementary buildings lost power later in the morning.
“A delay to give more time for evaluation was considered, but we do not like parents to have to wrestle with the unknown,” Roberts said.
Smith, Richards and Parkside elementary schools all lost power between 1:35 a.m. and 2:15 a.m., which contributed to the decision to call off school for Thursday. Mt Healthy lost power at 6:30 a.m. followed by Rockcreek just after 7 a.m. All the power was restored by 10 a.m., Roberts said.
Several BCSC high school sporting events scheduled for Thursday night fell victim to the storm.
Flat Rock-Hawcreek School Corp. initially called a two-hour delay at about 5:30 a.m. Thursday but switched over to a closing by 7 a.m.
Superintendent Shawn Price said roads in the Hope area had scattered slick spots when he called the two-hour delay early on Thursday morning. However, he then learned that while Flat Rock-Hawcreek schools had not lost power, several transformers had lost power in Hope and the possibility of a power outage happening during the day caused him to close school on Thursday.
“There were predictions of more loss of power. When we learned Hope had lost two transformers, that was the final deciding factor,” he said.
Price laughed when asked about having to take a snow day in mid-November, something that isn’t common for this area.
“It’s a little early for that,” he said. “It’s supposed to be 55 degrees next week.”
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Duke Energy
Customers who experience an outage during a storm should call the automated outage-reporting system: Indiana, 800-343-3525 or text OUT to 57801 (standard text and data charges may apply).
Customers can also report an outage or view current outages online at duke-energy.com/outages. Updates are also provided at:
- Duke Energy on Twitter: twitter.com/DukeEnergy
- Duke Energy on Facebook: facebook.com/DukeEnergy
Bartholomew County REMC
To report an outage or emergency, call 800-927-5672
To view current outages online, visit bcremc.com and click on "outages."
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- Motorists should slow down or move over if you see utility crews or emergency management crews working along the side the road. The “move over” law requires drivers to move over one lane when two or more lanes are available in each direction to make way for emergency responders, tow trucks, Department of Transportation incident management assistance patrols, and roadside work crews, such as utility crews. On roads with only one traffic lane in each direction, drivers must slow down and be prepared to stop. Violators could face fines.
- Safety remains critically important during restoration efforts. Avoid downed power lines. They should be considered energized and dangerous.
Source: Duke Energy
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- Restoring power after a storm can be challenging, as travel conditions are poor. Before power can be restored, crews first assess damage and determine which crews, equipment and supplies will be needed to make repairs. Because of this, customers may see damage assessors patrolling their neighborhoods before crews arrive to begin work.
- Crews prioritize work to ensure the largest number of customers are restored as quickly as possible. Essential services, such as hospitals and emergency response facilities, are the first priority.
- If you lose power, turn off as many appliances and electronics as possible. This helps with restoration efforts because it reduces the immediate demand on power lines when power is restored.
- Once your power is restored, wait a few minutes before turning your equipment back on.
Source: Duke Energy
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Home catches fire after tree falls on utility line. Page A4
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