NIOBRARA - Lusk Elementary/Middle School (LEMS) first and second graders wanted to show their thanks to the linemen and support staff at Niobrara Electric Association (NEA) for working hard during last weekend’s spring storm.

The students put together little buckets of snacks and goodies for the linemen and support staff as an expression of gratitude. They delivered their bucket of goodies on April 15.

According to NEA General Manager Shawna Glendy, over 1,355 services were without power. These included residential, commercial, cattle and stock wells and oil and gas lines.

The powerful spring storm started knocking out power on the evening of Saturday, April 6. Niobrara County, areas in western Nebraska and the town of Lusk all experienced outages. While some households had power restored quickly, others in northern Niobrara County that are powered by the Hat Creek Substation were without power until Thursday, April 11.

Wyoming and Nebraska line crews began working diligently to restore power outages and some had to turn back because of how dangerous the roads were during the storm. NEA support staff began to man the phones during the outage keeping the line crews and residents informed.

While there might have been a shortage of power, there was no shortage of help for the line crews as they battled the weather. NEA board member JD Wasserburger and a few other surrounding ranchers with heavy equipment helped pull many of the line crews out of the treacherous roads during the heavy wet snow.

According to Wasserburger, the line crews worked very hard to restore power back on during the storm, but the most important thing was that they worked safely. He said that the linemen are very aware of safety and working within those parameters during outages such as these. Wasserburger explained how the crews were beginning to become immobile because the road conditions were so bad. Wasserburger and five other ranchers pitched in and used tractors to help the crews the best they could. He said that he was grateful to the office employees for coming in and taking calls.

“We just worked together,” Wasserburger said. “We couldn’t have done this without our crews or our office employees.”

“The main issue wasn’t the lack of crews. It was the wet, heavy snow and mud. Our men couldn’t get our equipment to the outages to work on them,” Glendy said. “We finally had to have local ranchers bring their tractors to pull our trucks from pole to pole through the mud so we could get the electricity back on.”

Operations manager Jason Fish told the Herald that there had been several poles broken from the wind and it was difficult reaching them. He told the Herald that all of the line crews worked very hard and long hours. Foreman Levi Clark and Nebraska foreman Justin Houston led the line crews during the storm. Houston said that there were some linemen that weren’t able to get out on the Nebraska side because the roads had become to dangerous.

Due to the weather, Nebraska Governor Jim Pillin declared a State of Emergency. Declaring a state of emergency allows officials to request resources from other states and opens the governor’s emergency funds, which can be refunded. No federal government assistance was requested.

According to Glendy, there are still some co-ops and many residents in eastern Nebraska who are still without power 10 days later.

“NEA was very fortunate. While we were without power for an unusually long period of time, it was much worse in other areas. Our crews did an outstanding job coordinating the work on this outage. You won’t find a more dedicated team anywhere,” Glendy told the Herald.

For more information outage safety visit NEA’s website at  https://niobrara-electric.org/storm-center.