UPDATE: All residents and businesses in Sioux Center again have power after the west substation sustained major damage on Saturday. City officials say the city is operating without this west substation and utilizing non-standard operating conditions. They say it’s possible that brief outages may occur while the city continues to switch loads to other circuits.
The city thanks everyone for their patience, understanding and flexibility as many had disruptions to operations on Saturday.
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Story from Saturday:
Sioux Center, Iowa — The City of Sioux Center experienced some issues early on Saturday morning.
According to Sioux Center Fire Chief David Van Holland, the Sioux Center Fire Department was called out about 5:40 Saturday morning. However, he would not release any more details, and would give no further comment.
Information from the City of Sioux Center:
Due to damage to a local electrical substation, parts of Sioux Center could potentially be without power for several days.The areas that need to anticipate being without power for several days are as shown on the map:
Snieder Insurance north to Centre Mall
Railroad Tracks east to the Sioux Center Christian School
We encourage residents in this area to plan accordingly. Things you may consider:
• Monitor the temperature inside your home. As it approaches 32 degrees, allow a small amount of water to trickle from your faucets to keep pipes from freezing.
• Use extreme caution with portable or kerosene heaters.
• Keep fridge and freezer doors closed. Food can also be placed outside to keep cold.
• A water main has also been affected. All residents are encouraged to limit the use of water.
• Red Cross has set up an emergency shelter at the Sioux Center Community High School gym. Food and cots are available.
Local and regional utility crews are working diligently to safely restore power. The damage is significant, so isolating and rerouting power is a fairly complex challenge.
We expect that many in the community will have power restored sometime today, November 21. However, there is a smaller core part of the community that may be without power for several days.
A water main was also impacted and all Sioux Center residents are encouraged to limit the use of water.
The Red Cross is setting up an emergency shelter in the Sioux Center Community High School Gym 550 9th Street, NE. There will be cots and food available.
Cause of the substation damage is undetermined. At this point, we are concentrating on restoring power and the safety of our community.
We are working on this diligently utilizing as many resources as are available. Our goal is to restore power as quickly as possible while keeping our crews safe.
