Thousands of Iowans could be without power through today after an early morning storm packing winds of 80 to 100 miles-an-hour. MidAmerican Energy spokesperson, Ann Thelen, says the storm swept all the way across the state.
Thelen says statewide they have about 185,000 customers without power, with the largest outages in the Quad Cities, Des Moines and Sioux City. Some 118,000 customers are without power in the Quad Cities.
Thelen says the damage was typical of a windstorm. She says there’s an enormous amount of tree damage right now, with most of the outages from tree limbs that have torn down power lines. Thelen says it could be some time before the power gets back on.
Thelen says it’s too early to tell when the power will be restored, but they have crews out working and should know more later today. Thelen says the recovery will take time as there are so many outages caused by individual tree limbs tearing down lines.
Thelen says they have about five-thousand outages that’re impacting the 185,000 customers, and they have to take the outages one-by-one. Restoring power could involve tree removal, which will extend the time it takes to get all the power back on. Alliant Energy has over 27,000 customers without electric service.