Power crews have now been working a full week to try and restore all the electricity that was knocked out by the first big winter storm that hit Iowa. The rural areas of the state were some of the hardest hit by the ice that broke power poles and took down lines.

 

Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives, Ann Foster, says they’re seeing progress despite some setbacks. She says they have a total of 45-hundred people without power, and about 15-hundred of them are new outages from the latest storm. Foster says the latest storm didn’t help them get their work done.

Foster says it has been challenging for line crews, especially with the poor visibility in the western part of the state. Foster says they’re encourage that they haven’t had many new outages in the eastern part of the state, which she says is a "fragile system" after the first storm. Statewide there were over 300,000 people without power after the first storm — with some 100,000 them co-op customers.