Power outages plague area

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System-wide damage to power lines has caused some area residents to be without power, said an official with Roughrider Electric Cooperative Inc.

Leonard Hibl, director of member services with Roughrider Electric, said frost, ice and freezing drizzle have caused damage to electrical poles and lines throughout the service territory, which includes Stark, Billings, Oliver and Mercer counties.

“Billings County has probably the least damage of the three that are down in our southwest corner,” Hibl said. “East of Highway 85 is most of the damage and Stark and the southern half of Dunn County, it’s just spread over different spots.”

Some issues with power outages began Tuesday evening, he said.

Transmission lines and substations are intact. Workers are concentrating on distribution lines, he said.

“Before we were worried about low-hanging power lines and broken power lines,” Hibl said. “Now this afternoon we lost nine poles. So that’s going to continue to be an issue as time goes on with the weather front coming in. We’re not anxious to see that weather come at all, that’s going to hamper our efforts definitely.”

Hibl said crews are working extended hours and they have reached out to some outside contractors and the company has ordered additional materials.

“We’ve got a plan and we’re going ahead with it,” Hibl said. “We’re preparing for the worst and hope for the best, that’s all we can do. It’s going to be very contingent on how bad this next weather event gets as it goes through.”

Rod Kleinjan, sports director of local radio station KDIX, AM 1230, said during a Thursday night Webcast of a Dickinson High boys basketball game the station’s transmitter was down due to the power outages and the station could only be heard via its Web site’s online stream.

Tags: roughrider electric, news, local