In the areas of Whiteland most devastated by the March 31 F-3 tornado, 58 properties will remain without power until it is safe to reenergize them.
Bargersville Utility workers planned to restore 10 properties Thursday, including one east of the railroad tracks near the intersection of Pearl Street and Elm Street. Most other power restorations were not for households, and included the Clark Pleasant branch of the Johnson County Public Library, Whiteland’s wastewater treatment plant and a Comcast hotspot, said Kevin Killinger, utility manager for the town of Bargersville, which also supplies power to portions of Whiteland.
Many of the remaining homes, especially those east of the railroad tracks and a handful in the Spring Hill and Forest Park subdivisions, won’t have power restored anytime soon because they sustained heavy damage, Killinger said. These properties are largely unoccupied, so the power being out doesn’t impact the customer.
“A big portion of those homes are either a total loss or significant damage to the point where it’s not safe to reenergize the homes,” Killinger said. “A total loss is where the house is completely leveled and significant damage is where part of the roof is missing or windows are blown out. We won’t reenergize the homes (in that condition) due to water damage and safety issues.”
For the remaining properties, customers will have to contact the Bargersville utility office by calling 317-422-3160 or emailing [email protected] to coordinate getting the power turned back on, he said.
The outages are most prominent in the Spring Hill and Park Forest subdivision and between Woods Lane and Paris Lane, east of the railroad tracks and west of Elm Street near downtown Whiteland. The area east of the railroad tracks had the greatest number of homes severely damaged, and most homes there won’t get power back until they’re repaired or rebuilt, Killinger said.
The number of outages have gone down since the twister knocked out power to 4,000 households or 100% of utility customers in Bargersville and Whiteland. Power was restored to all of Bargersville by 4 p.m. Sunday with help from Duke Energy, which provides power to the Bargersville substation. In Whiteland, the outages were made more complex by physical damage created by the storm, as 16 homes in the town were destroyed and dozens more are in need of significant repairs.
On Tuesday, the number of outages had decreased to 220, all in Whiteland. With the additional restorations Thursday, the number of properties without power was just over a quarter what it was two days before, Killinger said.
Some parts of the power distribution system needed more repairs than others after the storm, leading to some houses getting power later than others. About 65 linemen and support staff, a combination of town employees and outside contractors, worked overtime to restore power during the storm response, he said.
The effort to restore utilities has cost between $750,000 and $1 million so far, and officials hope to be reimbursed with state money or funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. For now, the money is coming out of the utility’s capital improvement fund, and future projects, including power line replacement in Whiteland and Bargersville, could get delayed if the town isn’t reimbursed, he said.
