Major storm system hits Midwest

Major storm system hits Midwest



Feb 2007 - A major storm system 
with gusty winds hit the Midwest on Saturday and Sunday 
bringing severe weather to most of the region. 
Heavy snow accompanied by high winds created blizzard 
conditions over much of the central and northern Plains, 
causing the closure of many highways on the Plains on 
Saturday. At least seven traffic deaths resulted. 
A strong storm system moved eastward across the Southeast 
Saturday night and Sunday accompanied by tornadoes, damaging 
winds, large hail and torrential downpours. 
The area from eastern Texas to the Florida and Georgia 
Atlantic coasts was affected by severe weather during the 
weekend. 
Tonadoes devastated a five mile long stretch of southern 
Arkansas about 90 miles southeast of Little Rock, wrecking 
homes and businesses and injuring at least 27 people. 
Winds blowing up to 60 mph whipped up dozens of grass fires 
across Texas. Three homes near Midland were burned down and 
6,500 military residents of Fort Hood were forced to evacuate 
Saturday after a downed power line started a fast-moving grass 
fire, authorities said. 
Power was knocked out to 170,000 customers, mainly in Iowa and 
southern Missouri, but also in Oklahoma and Nebraska. 
"We're not talking about outage restoration time in number of 
hours," said Ryan Stensland, a spokesman for Alliant, which 
serves about 500,000 residents in Iowa. "We're talking about 
this in number of days." 
Interstate Power and Light Company, IP&L, an Alliant company, 
has all crews mobilized to restore electric services to about 
68,000 customers in its Iowa and Minnesota services area after 
still without power after the storm damaged the company's 
electric distribution and transmission infrastructure. 
Due to the widespread damage, an additional 500 crew members 
from contractors, IP&L's Wisconsin sister utility, Wisconsin 
Power and Light Company, and other utilities from Missouri, 
Kansas, Ohio and Virginia arrived today to work on the 
restoration effort alongside 600 Alliant Energy employees. 
"Mother Nature didn't leave many areas of Iowa and Southern 
Minnesota untouched," said Vern Gebhart, vice president of 
customer operations. "When we experience damage from other 
natural events such as tornados, it is usually localized; the 
damage from this storm is some of the worst our utility has 
ever seen. 
Vermonters are still cleaning up after last week's snow storm, 
and the state emergency management agency is hoping the snow 
removal does not cause another problem - flooding. 
Vermont Emergency Management, VEM, is asking companies and 
municipalities that are removing snow following last week's 
storm not to push or dump excess snow into the state's rivers. 

Many towns and private land owners have been forced to truck 
snow off-site due to the volume of snow on streets, sidewalks, 
and parking lots. The agency is asking those who are trucking 
snow to find a dump site away from rivers and streams due to 
flood concerns. VEM is also asking those businesses that are 
located along a waterway not to plow snow into the waterway. 
Many factors are raising the possibility of spring floods, 
including ice on rivers and the deep snow pack on the ground. 
The city of Montpelier is dealing with particular concerns. 
The cooperation of contractors in lessening the impact of the 
existing snow on the state's rivers is appreciated.

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