AREA – Severe storms with wind gusts in excess of 70 mph led to area power outages last Thursday, June 11.

“The severe weather front that passed through Tama County on Thursday morning, June 11, produced high-velocity winds that caused damage to the Traer-Dysart transmission line owned by ITC Midwest and completely cut off TMU’s power supply,” Traer Municipal Utilities (TMU) General Manager Eric McEwen told the newspaper in an emailed statement following the storm. “However, because our community maintains independent power production capabilities, our team immediately transitioned into emergency generation mode. TMU was able to start generating local power within 30 minutes of the outage, successfully restoring electricity to TMU customers.”

According to McEwen, Traer residents and TMU rural customers had their power restored within that half-hour time period Thursday morning using emergency generation power, but restoration to Dysart customers took longer as the community does not have its own generation capabilities.

Per a social media post by KWWL Chief Meteorologist Mark Schnackenberg just before 10 a.m. Thursday, an anemometer mounted on top of a stationary vehicle recorded a 72 mph wind gust roughly eight miles southwest of Traer at the intersection of U.S. 63 and County Road E-29 earlier that morning. At 10 a.m., the City of Dysart posted to social media, “Traer and Dysart are without power. ITC is working on the issue. We will try to keep you informed as we learn more.”

Power outages were also reported in the Gladbrook, Lincoln and Reinbeck areas. Per Reinbeck Public Library Director Michelle Sieh, large limbs were observed down in multiple locations throughout the Grundy County community. Across the state, the storm system produced widespread damaging winds, a few tornadoes (mostly in the southern half of the state) and large hail, according to the National Weather Service. In anticipation of the predicted severe weather, high school sports were postponed or canceled across Iowa, including the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union State Soccer Tournament, which had been scheduled to hold the semifinal round Thursday evening. Those games were moved to Friday for all three classes.

McEwen said TMU power was restored in full by 1 p.m., and the local utility was able to cease using backup generation. At 12:37 p.m., the City of Dysart reported power had been restored.

“While ITC crews worked to get power restored to our community, our generation kept our customers’ lights on, businesses running and critical infrastructure fully operational. This successful deployment highlights the immense value of maintaining a locally owned, resilient municipal power system that can protect our customers when there are regional grid failures,” McEwen said.

“I want to commend our local plant operators and line technicians for their swift, professional actions yesterday morning,” he added at the conclusion of his statement. “I also deeply appreciate the patience and support of our customers as we managed this outage.”