Winter Weather Improves Briefly for Northeast Kansas Residents

Most of the nation is well aware of the storm that hit the plains states last week. Although power has been restored to several in the Nemaha-Marshall Rural Electric Cooperative, there are still approximately 1,900 of the 3,700 customers without power. According to Weststar Energy's coverage/outage map they are updating every 10 minutes, there are still tens of thousands without power throughout Northeast Kansas. Locally, however, power has been restored to many in Marshall county, with some scattered outages in Marysville, Beattie, Oketo, Frankfort, Blue Rapids, and Waterville. The majority of the Beattie residents had power restored Thursday night. Some got their power back Saturday afternoon, and some in the southern part of Beattie are still without power, due mostly to downed trees tangled with the power lines.

The temperatures this week will be in the upper 30's from Tuesday through Saturday, and the sun is shining today. There is a slight chance of rain/snow on Wednesday, and returns Friday, and Saturday there is a 40% chance of snow. That means that people in the area are taking advantage of the brief respite and have been trying to clean up what debris they can while the weather is cooperating. The full clean up could take months.

Besides the 1.300 power poles that were snapped off in the storm, trees are down everywhere. Area residents are trying to clean up what they can while the weather holds. For rural residents with livestock, that means checking fence lines that have trees nearby and repairing what they can before they have animals escaping. Broken trees have fallen not only on power lines, but the fence that keeps livestock in.

The county roads are a mess. Because of the layer of ice, followed by the 5 to 6 inches of snow, rural areas have the added hassle of maneuvering the gravel roads that are extremely slick. The highways and city streets have been treated with salt and or sand. The only remedy for the miles of country roads in the area is for the temperatures to melt it off and the road graders to scrape off what they can. That's not always an easy task. The ice on the gravel makes the roads like a ice skating rink. Even the heaviest of vehicles can slide around on this stuff and it's packed hard. Road graders have attempted to at least clear the snow off of the layer of ice and remove any drifting that has happened, but they can't seem to get all the way through the ice. The best they can hope for is for temperatures and the sun to help with the process.

According to Threse Kopp, a rural mail carrier for Beattie and Summerfield, the county roads are, "A real mess, there are trees down on some roads, and it's very slick." Threse was one of the rural residents of Beattie who's power was finally restored Saturday afternoon. Summerfield, who is served by Norris Public Power out of Nebraska had power back on Thursday night as well.

Other parts of Northeast Kansas aren't so lucky. Sharon Kelly, of rural Effingham, said that although she got her power back on Saturday, her daughter who is less than a mile straight East of her, was told that she may be without power until Christmas. "It's a mess," Sharon said, "Holton is an ice slick, Dennison was declared a disaster area, and people have turned into thieves. They are breaking into houses in Valley Falls."

Other people have a different view of things. Dr. Ann Buchanan, a veterinarian of rural Olsburg, said on Sunday, "We're still without power, but the people here have been great. A bunch of folks have offered the use of their generators, so we're getting by. But the people have been calling to check on us to see if we needed anything."

That's the way it is in this part of the country. We help each other out. The local phone company, Blue Valley Communications, in Home City, has turned their old office building into a shelter for those in the area still without power. They have beds available for anyone needing a warm place to stay.