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City to address electrical outages

Posted 7/8/21

Fayette utility customers have endured several electrical outages over the last several weeks. All but one of the roughly half-dozen outages during the month of June have been attributed to the …

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City to address electrical outages

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Fayette utility customers have endured several electrical outages over the last several weeks. All but one of the roughly half-dozen outages during the month of June have been attributed to the recent severe thunderstorms which have caused flash flooding, downed tree limbs, and other damage across the state.

An electrical interruption on June 17 was caused by high demand during a period of extreme heat. Most outages have occurred due to the entanglement of tree limbs in the city’s electrical lines.

Fayette Mayor Kevin Oeth, in a post to the city’s Facebook page on June 25, asked for patience. “Unfortunately, when major storms work their way through a city, the power will oftentimes be disrupted. Sometimes the disruption is in small areas of that city and sometimes the entire city,” he wrote. “I know, as all of you know, that Fayette has, in the last eight days, suffered through multiple power outages and storms. Believe me, I do not like this anymore than any of the rest of you. I am, however, standing firm in the thought that even if we had completely new electrical systems in place, there still would’ve been, with the storms coming through, a good chance we would’ve lost power.”

Power interruptions during storms are not new to Fayette. Danny Dougherty, Fayette’s Director of Public Works, implored the city in early 2020 to address the problem with tree branches around the power lines. The city council heard a presentation by Tim Poindexter from Poor Boy Tree Service, Inc., at a meeting on January 21, 2020, and by March had received bids from two tree trimming companies.

The city never acted on either bid, presumably because of a number of issues that arose suddenly, such as fines by the state in excess of $150,000 and the subsequent firing of City Administrator Robin Triplett, and the COVID-19 pandemic. However, while the issue of tree trimming took a back seat, the city council is continuing to address the matter. City Hall is once again seeking bids from companies and has set aside $50,000 for tree trimming in its recently-passed 2021-2022 budget.

The council is also awaiting a report from a study of the city’s electrical grid performed by the Missouri Public Utility Alliance.

“If there is one thing I would like for people to understand, it would be that our electrical problem did not form overnight,” Mayor Oeth said on Monday. “It is a problem that has developed over many years, therefore it is not a problem that will be fixed overnight. As with any problem, first, we must determine what the problem is and the extent of the problem.

“Trimming trees is something we can get started on sooner rather than later so we are seeking bids to get that done and done as quickly as possible.”

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