POWER LINES
Helping Hands
After summer storms caused widespread outages in Ohio, co-ops from near and far jumped in to help.
BY JEFF McCALLISTER
A
s Father’s Day approached this past June, so did a weather pattern that brought with it a series of storms across Ohio. The storms appeared initially to be strong, to be sure, but not out of line with the usual tempests that sweep through the Midwest every summer. Over the next few days, however, the event distinguished itself as one of the most damaging and expensive weather-related calamities Ohio’s electric cooperatives had ever witnessed.
Analysis later showed that the first wave during the overnight hours of June 13–14 brought with it three tornadoes and a powerful macroburst storm just in a 53-minutes span, wreaking havoc on distribution and transmission systems across the state; all of the 24 electric distribution cooperatives in Ohio reported outages, including a few that suffered widespread damage — downed lines, broken poles — to their systems. As the co-ops organized resources to restore the systems to turn power back on to their members, the next several days brought alternating extreme heat and additional powerful storm systems that made the work of restoring service both 4
OHIO COOPERATIVE LIVING • AUGUST 2022
more dangerous and more plentiful. Problems on AEP’s high-voltage transmission network resulted in more than 100,000 central Ohio homes and businesses having their power intentionally shut off for long stretches of time. Often, when summer (or winter) storms cause outages, the affected area is concentrated enough that the individual co-op can rally its own lineworkers to handle the repairs. Occasionally, it’s bad enough that a nearby co-op will jump in to offer assistance and equipment to restore power. This storm, however, officially classified as a derecho, affected so much of the state that Ohio co-ops initially had few workers to spare for those who were hit hardest. “This storm brought more damage to our cooperative than we’ve seen in the 28 years I’ve been here, and our neighboring cooperatives in Ohio were hit hard, too,” says Phil Caskey, CEO of Mount Gilead-based Consolidated Cooperative. So the call went out around the region, and by midday on the first full day after the first storm, 17 crews from Kentucky had hit the road to help. By the next morning, crews from Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Virginia had arrived
