Crews worked around the clock to restore power

When a storm ripped through Yuma County recently, it knocked out trees, power poles and power to more than 14,000 households and businesses.

Crews from Arizona Public Service worked night and day to restore power as quickly as possible. At the peak of the Aug. 26 storm, more than 14,000 customers lost power.

APS reported 30 different outages of significance. The storm knocked down or broke 30 poles and took out a lot of primary wires, APS spokesman Dan Wool told the Yuma Sun.

The night of the storm, outages ranged from one hour to 20 hours. However, some customers lost power for longer periods during the storm's aftermath. In some cases, a few were without power through late Monday, when the final customer finally got back on.

In the meantime, to beat the heat, some customers stayed with family and friends and some checked into hotels.

“We also had a volunteer response,” said Wool. “Volunteers handed out dry ice at local distribution centers. We worked with the Red Cross to make sure everyone stayed cool and safe.”

It took APS about 50 different crew members working around the clock, with 15 hours on and eight hours off, to completely restore power.

APS mobilized crews from all over the state. In addition to Yuma workers, crews came from Casa Grande, Phoenix and Parker.

APS had crews on the field, customer representatives answering questions and taking outage reports, and engineers and designers assessing the damage and helping crews pinpoint trouble areas.

Some crews worked in the warehouse and some as haulers bringing in equipment from as far as Phoenix.

“Some folks were running the show in the Yuma center while troublemen were finding out what was going on,” Wool said.

He explained that “troublemen” is a term used to describe crews that do just that: find faults in the system. “They scout it and get it done.”

Last week after the storm, APS also addressed individual problems, dealing with fallen trees and foliage on lines and working with electricians to make sure that damage to equipment and people's homes were repaired.

“They worked Monday through Thursday, and we still had a few up to Friday,” Wool said.

“This was a significant storm and required a significant response. When these types of events happen, we mobilize quickly. Our goal is to get power back on as soon as possible. We spring right into action.”

The Yuma County Water Users Association fared better than expected, according to Charles Cowen, its head of operations.

The association has its own power transmission system, but there was very little damage at Avenue A and 6th Street caused by the strong winds.

The association rerouted the power supply through different channels, Cowen said.

As far as damage to irrigation lines, Cowen reported “none whatsoever.”

Ditchriders spend long hours driving around looking for irrigation breaks, with five crew members working 14-hour shifts.

“We were really lucky. We've had worse problems during calm times,” Cowen said.

Mara Knaub can be reached at mknaub@yumasun.com or 539-6856.