From the Desk of...Chuck Witte, General Manager

Where’s the snow?... This past week all the weatherman talked about was the snow storm we were to get over the weekend.  Well, I changed my plans and stayed home as I did not want to get caught on the road with a blizzard.  Needless to say, Saturday came and went with no snow.  On Sunday, I awoke to maybe a sixteenth of an inch of snow on the ground.  It was gone by nine.  But today (Monday, March 11, 2013) we are getting a little moisture in the form of snow.

March came in like a lamb.  Hopefully, March will go out like a lion with lots of moisture.  March and April are good months for ice storms that can cause damage to our power lines.  This Association cannot guarantee that you will have power all of the time.  Mother Nature still rules but you can be assured that your employees work hard to keep the power on and restore the power when it goes out.

Power Outage... When you have a power outage, check your breakers in your home and on the meter pole.  Check with your neighbors and then call the office.  Remember that when the office is closed we still have an answering service responding to your call.  Please stay by your phone if possible as an employee may call to get any additional information that the line crew may need.  When you call an outage in, be ready with the name the service is in, phone number, account number (on your bill), address and any other information that can help pinpoint the cause of the outage.

When a large storm causes lots of outages, the line crew works in this order: Transmission lines, substations, main lines, feeder lines and then individual outages.

Strategic Planning… During 2012 we did a long range plan that covers the years from 2012 to 2020.  That plan is a road map to where we think we are going and where we need to be with our line improvements and new lines.  We have started a new four year construction plan that incorporates the long range plan.  We have a lot of work to do as our system ages.  Line construction costs have increased a lot in the past five years.  The first cut of the work plan showed about eight million dollars in improvements.  We cannot afford to spend that amount of money so the projects will be spread out and we will end up spending a little over a million dollars per year for the next four years.  This is a lot of money spent to keep the lights on.

Call, stop in or drop me a line if you have any questions.

2013 Scholarship Awards:

$1000.00 BEPC: Ashley Johnson

$500.00 Tri-State G&T: Muira Bunker

$500.00 Tri-State G&T: Caitlin Harris

$200.00 Tri-State G&T Director's: Tyler Faircloth, Ryan Madsen, Taylor Nelson, Pierce Peasley, Brendan Ruwart

$200.00 Wheatland REA Directors' and Manager's: Tray Hiatt, Ty Shockley