I'm sure that many of you have heard the phrase "lightning doesn't strike twice"; well I wish I could say the same for ice storms.  In the previous twelve months, your Cooperative has experienced two ice storms and each of these two storms could be considered the most severe storms in your Cooperative's 70-year history.  The most recent ice storm began on January 27th and continued thru the 28th. 

As the storm approached, the weather forecast called for a wintery mix of ice, freezing rain, sleet and snow that began falling on Tuesday, January 27th.  Your Cooperative recognized the potential damage of this storm and prepared for yet another severe storm.  By 4 p.m. on Tuesday, your Cooperative had all internal line and forestry crews along with additional crews from two other Illinois Cooperatives ready to respond as outages were reported.  Members began reporting outages on the evening of January 27th.  As the storm continued thru the night, your Cooperative called for additional assistance from local line and forestry contractors to assist in restoring power.  At 2:00 a.m. on January 28th, the Cooperative called for more additional line and forestry crews from Illinois Cooperatives across the state to assist in the restoration process.  By Wednesday morning, January 28th, the storm had blanketed much of the Cooperative's southern and eastern territory with over 1 inch of ice along with several inches of sleet.

During the course of this storm, all your Cooperative employees along with 120 additional line and forestry personnel from 13 other Illinois Cooperatives and 4 area contractors worked 17-18 hours per day in very extreme conditions in order to restore power to approximately 9,500 members.  Transmission outages resulted in loss of power to 12 of the Cooperative's 35 substations.  The hazardous road conditions along with numerous downed trees and limbs across the roads made the process of traveling to damaged areas very difficult and time consuming.  In order to accelerate the restoration process, a helicopter was utilized to fly the transmission lines and report areas of damage so line and forestry personnel could travel directly to the areas that needed repair. 

As the week continued, your Cooperative focused on re-energizing lines that would restore power to as many members as possible.  After restoring power to the main distribution lines, restoration efforts focused on restoring power to devastated secondary lines.  Your Cooperative restored power to the last residence on Tuesday, February 3rd.

As I think about the two ice storms that have plagued our Cooperative in the past 12 months and the devastation that they have caused, I look across the river into Kentucky and must realize that although what we have experienced is truly devastating, it could have been much worse as many of them are expected to be without power for a month or longer.

At the conclusion of this storm, I would like to thank all of you as Cooperative members and owners for your understanding of the magnitude of this extreme storm, your patience, your assistance and your thank you letters that have been received.  I would also like to thank all of the hard working and dedicated employees, other Illinois Cooperative employees and contractors who made this restoration possible. 

As many of you already know all of my articles normally end with the slogan "We'll keep the lights on for you."  However given the magnitude of this severe ice storm, my slogan this month will be

"We turned the lights back on for you".