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Hastings Utilities reports nearly 5,000 customers out at peak during March 19 blizzard; crews logged hundreds of hours restoring service
Summary
Utility staff reviewed the March 19 blizzard response: outages peaked at about 5,000 customers, crews logged more than 400 hours in a single workday, two 1971 breakers failed at Don Henry substation and staff relied on back‑feed and mutual‑aid to restore service over several days.
Noel, a utilities staff member, presented a detailed outage summary to the Hastings Utility Board on April 10 describing the department’s response to the March 19 blizzard.
Noel said the first storm‑related outage calls arrived about 2:30 a.m., and outages peaked shortly after 9 a.m. with “about 5,000 customers out on 2 net.” He told the board the utility has roughly 14,500 total customers. Crews staged for safety and initially did not send crews into rural areas because roads became impassable; crews concentrated on restoring large feeders and back‑feeding where possible.
“By 1:30 in the afternoon, we were down to 2,000 customers…
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