A powerful late winter storm is taking aim at Lincoln and LES crews are preparing for the possibility of power outages Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. The National Weather Service says there could be several hours of wind gusts between 60-70 miles per hour along with rain and snow.
Up to four inches of snow is possible and that combined with the strong winds will produce blizzard conditions and make travel extremely difficult. LES spokesman Travis Burdette tells KLIN News they will have a couple of extra crews along with some additional field personnel working through the overnight in case trees and power lines come down.
“Obviously, safety is an issue and so if the conditions are severe enough that they can’t safely do their work, we will probably hold them until things improve a little bit,” Burdette says. “Critical situations will require a little more work but our plan is to have them do as much as they can with the weather conditions that occur tonight.”
Burdette says he’s concerned about the many trees in Lincoln that were damaged or weakened by the powerful storm in July. ” I would encourage customers to be aware of that and stay out from undeath trees that could potentially be a hazard.”
He says his workers will be doing their best of avoid compromised trees while they work. Burdette also encourages customers who rely on electricity to operate home medical equipment to have and test their backup power sources, like a home generator.