Craig Springs waits for service to be restored

OKTIBBEHA COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI.)- Heavy rains and high winds are a bad combination for power lines.

Put them together and there’s a chance trees could fall over and you’ll be left in the dark.

There are still some Oktibbeha County residents waiting for power.

But teams are on the job. Getting the poles back up and the lights back on.

4-County Engineer Lynn Timbrook has seen it before. Trees, poles, and power lines all twisted together. Cutting through the maze is the first challenge.

“As you can see, there was a lot of debris that was on the ground that we had to cut up. Trees that have fallen and there’s some damage to this building over here, this church building. And so we’re in here setting a new pole and picking up the wire that we can put back on the pole so we can re-energize and get them service,” said Timbrook.

The location of Craig Springs made this rebuild particularly tricky because service lines are so spread out.

“We try to get the most customers back on as fast as we can, so that is that goal is to get as many people as back on as quickly. Unfortunately, that leaves for fewer numbers that are off on a small tap or a small line to be the last ones to come on. And that’s just the way it needs to work because we can’t energize the line like this one until we get all the other customers back on,” said Timbrook.

Another obstacle is flooding. Many of the downed lines are in spots where traditional bucket trucks can’t travel.

If there is a hidden benefit, 4-County will use aluminum to replace copper. Aluminum is stronger and better than the current copper.

“They can’t withstand these kinds of winds and they can’t withstand the impacts of trees falling on them and that those two things happened here,” said Timbrook.

Timbrook said the new aluminum wires are excepted to have a 40-50 year life span.