As you may have heard, Highway 83 is closed due to a downed power line crossing the highway. Crews there have a very big job ahead of them, as the towers holding these power lines are in very bad shape…and not terribly accessible, either. We went from sunny 70s earlier this week to blustery blizzard conditions, dumping more precipitation than we usually get in the entire month of April over the course of a single day! Of course, heavy slush and snow like that put an incredible strain on suspended power and phone lines.

I imagine a tower like this is going to be very difficult to repair, since the metal structure is torn and mangled. I counted about a half dozen of these damaged towers between Highway 83 and Baldwin.

There were some smaller lines running along the road into Baldwin that were down as well, with five or more poles laying in the ditch. Others, like this one, were merely broken.

This looks like an easy fix compared to the rest of the damage I saw! At least the pole is intact.

Here’s the beginning of the fallen poles, which were laying in the frozen ditch. The slush had frozen so hard that I was able to walk on top of it. For some shots I took throughout the morning, I walked an eighth mile or so down a section line road, and didn’t even get my tennis shoes wet. Local residents had parked along the road and hiked down their driveways.

One of five poles laying in the ditch. Some poles were either broken or ripped out of the ground but the wires looked intact.

I wondered how the Regan wind farm fared through all this and, from this vantage point, everything looked intact. Naturally none of the turbines were turning. Wind power is the most expensive power you can attempt to generate except perhaps solar, and it’s very unpredictable. Plus it puts rabid environmentalists in a quandary, since the blades kill birds.

Of course I had to get a windmill in there somewhere! This is pretty much in someone’s back yard. All of the metal towers I saw that were down were in the middle of a field or other location far from the roads. When I arrived a crew was using tracked skidsteers to clear a path to the towers. I stayed for a little while, which accounts for the change in sky color between some of these shots.

Here the crews are preparing to work on the first tower east of Highway 83. I think they had already made repairs to a tower on the west side, but I’m not positive on that. Once this one is fixed, I think they can open the highway (which may have already happened as I type this).

I didn’t stay to see any of the repair work, since I’m busy and it was likely to be a slow process. I left about the same time as the KX News van, except I got in the southbound lane to go back to Bismarck. They drove down the northbound lane, straight into oncoming traffic, before catching their mistake and doing a quick u-turn. Oops!

I’m told there are similar situations like this all around our area. I have friends south of Lincoln who are borrowing one of my generators right now. I’m told that lines are down from Mandan to Flasher as well, and friends of mine north of Mandan got their power restored yesterday evening. Thankfully it isn’t sub-zero now, too! Hopefully the warm temperatures will resume quickly and we can proceed to Spring.