The May storms that hit not only Todd-Wadena’s service territory, but many of our neighbors as well, brought unprecedented outages. As our team of employees worked hard to restore power as quickly and safely as possible, we were encouraged by the support we received from cooperative members. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our cooperative employees for their hard work and dedication day in and day out.
The storm with the largest impact on our system was the widespread storm that swept through our region on Thursday, May 12th. Todd-Wadena’s lineworkers reported for duty late Thursday evening and worked diligently until the power was restored on Saturday night.
The linemen worked through the wind and rain to get the system back up and running. They pulled trucks out of the mud, cut trees off the line, dug through buildings entangled in our lines, fixed cross arms, and so much more. Through all this, they restored power to you, our members, with no incidences. Safety is our top priority – ensuring all of our employees go home to their families. They are truly heroes out in the field.
While all of this was happening, our member and energy services, operations, and finance departments were busy back at headquarters behind the scenes. There were employees frantically working with vendors and ordering supplies to ensure we had enough materials to complete all of the work needed in the field. There were employees working with members on how to get water to their cows. There were employees instructing people how to keep their homes and freezers safe during the outage. There were employees preparing and delivering food to the linemen out in the field. There were employees working in the outage control center pinging meters and helping our operations manager work through the outages. We also had our meter technicians out in the field restoring fuses and fixing downed meters.
I can’t thank the crews from Beltrami, Legacy, Roseau, and Itasca-Mantrap enough for coming to our aid in after these storms. Their lineworkers jumped right into the mix to assist our crews. They displayed the same great attitude and dedication as our own employees.
When widespread outages occur, power restoration requires a coordinated team effort. I could not be more proud of how Todd-Wadena employees pulled together and got power back on for our members as quickly and safely as possible.
