Thursday’s winter storm coated Mower County with a slick sheet of ice, resulting in power outages throughout the county and forced many schools and businesses to close today.

Friday, March 15, 2002

Thursday’s winter storm coated Mower County with a slick sheet of ice, resulting in power outages throughout the county and forced many schools and businesses to close today.

Jerry McCarthy, general manager of Austin Utilities said he received reports of power outages "all over the community and all afternoon yesterday … but, the wind died down and we stopped getting reports."

"A lot of the outages were due to ice on the power lines and the lines snapping together because of the wind," he said. "The longest anyone was without power was probably and hour to an hour and a half. We started to see a decline in the number of power outage reports about 8:30 p.m. and everyone was back on by 10:30 p.m."

"The system held up pretty well and the tree-trimming program we have to keep tree branches out of power lines worked wonderfully," he added.

Surprisingly, the Austin Police Department and Mower County Sheriff’s Department received few reports of vehicular accidents due to the icy road conditions.

Austin Police Chief Paul Philipp said he knew of only one weather-related accident that occurred in Austin this morning, but had not received the full details about the incident.

Mower County Sheriff Barry Simonson said "it’s slippery … the roads are still pretty bad, but I think people know it’s slippery and are being careful."

Call Amanda L. Rohde at 434-2214 or e-mail her at amanda.rohde@austindailyherald.com