(Spirit Lake)– The reconstruction of Highway 86 between Highway 9 and the Minnesota border was the source of a major power outage earlier today (Fri.).
Aaron Rushey, Vice President of Operations and Engineering for Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative tells KUOO news a major transmission owned by Cornbelt Power Cooperative was knocked down…(click here for comment.) “The outage today was caused by a dump truck getting into a transmission line there on the Highway 86 project about a mile north of Vick’s Corner. They got into an overhead guy wire, snapping the pole and causing the outage.”
Rushey says the outage affected a lot of people…(click here for comment.) “It knocked out two of Iowa Lakes’ subs, one across the road from Rosenboom Machine and Tool which is our Bosworth sub and then one in the northwest corner of Dickinson county, our Diamond Lake sub. And I know Alliant and ITC also had some issues due to this.”
Alliant Energy customers around Big Spirit Lake along with the cities of Spirit Lake and Okoboji and some in the Lake Park area were also affected. Power was out for most for about 40 minutes, with the exception of those in the Lake Park area where the outage was longer.
