MidAmerican to the rescue

Hats off to MidAmerican Energy for its response to power outages in the aftermath of all too many storms this summer.

We were hit with another thunderstorm in the wee hours of Monday, which caused a large tree branch to crash down on the electric line that from the pole in the alley to our home on Cayuga Street.

It must have happened around 3 a.m. When I got up at 6, I noticed we were the only house on the street without power. I looked in the back yard and saw the cause.

I called MidAmerican and reported the information, then called the police to let them know there may be a live wire in the alley.

I received an email from MidAmerican that someone would arrive in about an hour and a half; meanwhile, a police car rolled through the alley to check it out. Apparently there were no live wires on the ground.

Colby the MidAmerican lineman pulled up in his truck a few minutes after 8, just as MidAmerican’s email had promised, and he had the line up and energized again within 20 minutes. I could tell when the timer on the microwave in the kitchen started blinking “12:00”.

I asked Colby if he was busy. “Very,” he replied, with crews responding to outages all over town.

MidAmerican is very good about responding to power outages. We not only received several emails apprising us of the progress of our situation, we also received a phone call later to make sure everything was OK. That’s good service.

Then it happened again Monday night when our area was hit with 60+ mph winds. More limbs fell from trees lining our bucolic Cayuga Street and elsewhere throughout Storm Lake. We’re still The City Beautiful, just with a bunch more windshorn trees.

Climate change or not, this summer’s storms seem to be more numerous than years past. I’ve spent more time this summer stooped over picking up sticks strewn around the yard after big blows than in the nearly 40 years we’ve lived there. Thankfully city crews drive by after the storms and pick up branches from the yards along the streets.

We also have helpful neighbors who look after our house when we are gone. They even cleaned up our yard after the Good Friday storm that battered Storm Lake this spring. Fortunately our little bungalow escaped damage.

About 15 years ago, during a March ice storm, a neighbor’s tree fell down in our back yard and yanked the power line off our house. That caused so much damage we had to move into King’s Pointe for a couple nights while Mid-American and Stanton Electric teamed up to get us back in business. Our homeowner’s insurance paid for the hotel.

Local arborist Jerry Kahl’s gang will remove the big tree limb from our back yard as soon as they can, and hopefully that will be enough weather excitement for us this year.

I guess it’s appropriate that Storm Lake school teams are nicknamed Tornadoes.