Sheldon, Iowa — A combine struck a power line in Sheldon on Tuesday, plunging 1000 northwest Iowa power customers into the dark and starting a fire.
According to MidAmerican Energy spokesperson Geoff Greenwood, shortly before 9 a.m. on Tuesday, a combine struck an overhead distribution line, which then made contact with a transmission line on the same pole. The incident occurred at the 200 block of 16th Street in Sheldon. That’s about a block east of Glen’s Sport Center.
Firefighters and MidAmerican crews were sent to the scene.
Greenwood says while it broke the overhead line, it did not break the pole. He says the outage affected about 1,000 customers in and around Sheldon and Boyden.
Sheldon Assistant Fire Chief Brad Hindt says the wire started the picked cornfield on fire, but that was put out by a couple of neighbors. He says Sheldon firefighters stood by until MidAmerican arrived and cleared the power line. He says they wet the burnt corn stalks down to prevent flareups and returned to the station after about a half an hour.
Greenwood says MidAmerican crews made the necessary repairs and restored service at 9:24 a.m.
