MiEnergy working to repair broken poles, assess damage and restore power

(ABC 6 News) – MiEnergy Cooperative said its working to restore power following Wednesday’s storm. As of Thursday evening the cooperative is reporting 35 power poles that are broken and believe that total will rise as workers continue to assess the damage.

MiEnergy Cooperative sent out this press release Thursday:

Cresco, IA | Rushford, MN (3 p.m. Dec. 16, 2021)— MiEnergy Cooperative’s lineworkers continue to make progress on restoring power following a storm that caused considerable damage within its service territory Wednesday evening. At the peak of the storm, 7,500 services were without power. The co-op’s distribution system has 35 broken poles and expects that total to increase as employees continue to assess damages.

Crews worked throughout the night and will continue to work until sundown today and then regroup tomorrow at 5 a.m. Lineworkers will continue to restore power as quickly and safely as possible for the next few hours. MiEnergy encourages members who do not have power at sundown to be prepared to be without power overnight. The co-op estimates the number of services without power overnight to be less than 1,000.

The remaining outages take extra time to restore as crews are reporting broken power line poles and a large number of downed trees. Some services cannot be restored due to damaged buildings.

The cooperative would like to remind the public to report downed power lines and to keep others away as it could be live.

Members can view MiEnergy’s real-time power outage by visiting https://www.mienergy.coop/outages. MiEnergy appreciates the patience of its members as crews continue to work to restore power.

MiEnergy Cooperative is a member-owned electric distribution cooperative and is the result of a merger between Hawkeye REC, of Cresco, Iowa and Tri-County Electric Cooperative, of Rushford, Minn. in 2017. It maintains 5,500 miles of power lines covering most of Fillmore, Houston and Winona counties in Minnesota and Chickasaw, Howard and Winneshiek counties in Iowa. The cooperative also serves small pockets bordering those counties. It provides electricity to more than 18,800 members in northeastern Iowa and southeastern Minnesota. MiEnergy is a Touchstone Energy Cooperative.