Sioux Center, Iowa — Power has now been restored to all parts of Sioux Center after an electrical substation blew up early Saturday morning, leaving half the town of 75-hundred without electricity. As if the power outage wasn’t enough, the community also suffered a major water main break at the same time, leaving hundreds of homes and businesses without power or water. Sioux Center City Manager Paul Clousing says utility crews worked non-stop through the weekend to help restore power.
He says the outage lasted several hours.
Clousing says some electrical transformer boxes within close proximity of the substation were blown off their foundations when the substation short-circuited.The Sioux Center city manager doesn’t know which came first — the water main break or electrical outage.
The American Red Cross was called in to offer assistance to the community, and the Sioux Center High School gymnasium served as an emergency shelter. Clousing says the town will continue to use the portable substation that was brought in to help restore power. He predicts it may be months before the permanent electrical substation will be fully repaired and working.
There was also a subsequent fire at the city’s waste water treatment plant.
Sioux Center Police Chief Paul Adkins says although there has been a string of suspicious fires in Sioux Center in recent months, he has no reason to believe that any of the damage to the water main, the substation, or the waste water plant was suspicious or criminal in nature.
