Clear skies. Low 56F. Winds light and variable..
Clear skies. Low 56F. Winds light and variable.
Representatives from NIPSCO and the Robert Henry Corporation look at the maps of their upcoming underground improvement project in the Northwood subdivision. Front row, from left; Aletha Gordon and Denise Conlon with NIPSCO. Back row; Devin Myers project manager, NIPSCO, Mark Lavignette, project manager with Robert Henry Corporation and another Robert Henry project manager.
This is a common site in Nappanee as Saturday’s early morning storm downed lots of trees and limbs. Brush puked up along the streets will be an ongoing project for city employees for weeks.
A large tree was uprooted in a yard along US Hwy 6 east.
Representatives from NIPSCO and the Robert Henry Corporation look at the maps of their upcoming underground improvement project in the Northwood subdivision. Front row, from left; Aletha Gordon and Denise Conlon with NIPSCO. Back row; Devin Myers project manager, NIPSCO, Mark Lavignette, project manager with Robert Henry Corporation and another Robert Henry project manager.
This is a common site in Nappanee as Saturday’s early morning storm downed lots of trees and limbs. Brush puked up along the streets will be an ongoing project for city employees for weeks.
A large tree was uprooted in a yard along US Hwy 6 east.
NAPPANEE — The storm that raged through early Saturday morning left nearly the entire City of Nappanee without power — about 5,000 customers according to Denise Conlon, public affairs and economic development for Northern Indiana Public Service Company and many remained without power throughout the weekend.
Conlon attended Monday’s Nappanee Board of Public Works and Safety meeting.
Mayor Phil Jenkins said as of Monday morning 360 customers were still without power but by the end of the meeting that number had dwindled to 37 customers.
Conlon said of the over 40,000 NIPSCO customers affected by the storm Nappanee and Lowell were the two hardest hit communities from the storm. She explained one of the reasons it was taking longer to restore power to some customers was because as they cleared away brush and limbs they discovered many poles were broken, too.
Jenkins said he and Conlon had been in communication throughout the outage.
“I feel for the people who’ve been out for 2-3 days,” he said but added that he appreciated the communication with NIPSCO and said they’ve been hard at work in the community. “Fortunately there were no major injuries and no major structural damage but unfortunately they fell on too many NIPSCO lines.”
The mayor also suggested residents check on NIPSCO’s website under outages and there will be anticipated restoration times listed. As he brought the website up he reported 103 customers in the West Park area had just had power restored.
Street Superintendent Brent Warren said it will likely be two-three weeks before all the storm debris is picked up. He said a lot of it had been cleaned up and out to the street but he said there will also be a lot to come as trees fell on houses, buildings and cars and it will take a little longer to get that debris to the street.
Warren said a main issue his department is dealing with is they’ve started the repaving project so they need to clean up those streets so that work can go on.
“Be patient with us — we’re not playing favorites,” Warren said. “We have to do the work so contractors can do their job — we will get to you.”
He said the absolute best case scenario would be two weeks, but it’ll probably be three weeks.
“We appreciate the town’s time and patience with us as we work to restore power,” Conlon said. “We appreciate the open communication with the city and offer to help if we need it.”
Besides Conlon, several other NIPSCO representatives and representatives from Robert Henry Corporation were present to share with the board details of an upcoming electrical improvement project and to request excavation in right of way permits for it.
Megan Henning, project communication lead with NIPSCO and Mark Lavignette, project manager for Robert Henry Corporation did the bulk of the explanations.
Henning gave the overall explanation of the project taking place in the Northwood subdivision. She said the current underground cable is 50 years old and unjacketed. The project will entail taking the old cable out, boring in and laying conduit to protect the cable, put jacketed cable in which will then connect to the transformer box. She said the work will mostly be bored so there wouldn’t be a lot of trenching in yards. She said as the crews work they may find a faulty transformer and will replace it. The underground cables will tie into an above ground system — the reason for 12 utility poles.
“It’s an update to the system,” she said. “In the long run there’ll be less maintenance work in the area. And less service interruptions as a result of this work. It’s a really great upgrade to the community.”
Henning said affected customers will be receiving a fact sheet in the mail. The project is expected to start August 22.
Lavignette explained the seven areas of work within the subdivision and that they would go in order as shown on the map. The first area includes Hartman St. and Hickory Lane and County Road 52. Lavignette said there’ll be a potential need for traffic control and lane closures as they set poles in the ground. Areas 1 & 2 include Ind. 19 and C.R. 52.
Area 3 includes C.R. 52 and Ind. 19 by the church where the substation is. Area 4 includes the Wa Nee Administration Building and North Side Manor Apartments. Area 5 includes Woodview Elementary. Area six includes the east side of Heritage Parkway and area 7 is just a small section nearby.
Lavignette said customers may be concerned with areas under transformer boxes where they’ll need to dig out and they will flag yards. He said they will work with Woodview Elementary and try to coordinate the work with their fall break if possible and said the work there will only take a day or two.
Warren also brought up another NIPSCO project on Woodview Drive at the same time. They were provided with copies of that work so they can coordinate the work on the two projects internally.
Henning said there would be “temporary outages throughout the work but customers will be told 48 hours in advance.”
They’re expecting 12 weeks of construction time.
The board approved excavating in right of way permits for the project.
The board also later approved excavating in right of way to NIPSCO for the Woodview Drive project. That project is expected to begin August 15-December. Warren said tree removal is already happening.
Mike Reese of The Troyer Group attended the meeting virtually and brought a proposal for acquiring right of way for the extension of Walnut Street east of Miriam Street. Jenkins said this project has been in the works for some time. The fee for The Troyer Group is $2,400 and the board approved the work.
Reese also brought two other items. One was pay application #3 for the Miriam Street project in the amount of $307,260.11 to HRP Construction. He said they’ve made “good progress on the north side.” He said there will be some change orders coming on the project.
Warren said the paving pushed off to next week due to the amount of rain in the past week. The board approved the pay application.
The board also approved pay application #7 to R Yoder Construction for South Park in the amount of $54,868.50. Reese said the work is almost complete — seeding and concrete work will be completed in the fall.
• Approved partial pay application for water tower Division A in the amount of $79,804.75 to Caldwell Tank.
• Approved partial pay application #1 for Visu Sewer in the amount of $147,860.38. Ryan LaReau of Commonwealth said the work is almost complete
• Approved material procurement change order #2 to Ferguson for additional sewer pipe in the amount of $4,706.52
• Approved a pay increase of .50 an hour to two water/wastewater utility employees—Crystal Reinhard and Adam Schrock. Water and Wastewater Superintendent Gale Gerber said “They’re both doing excellent jobs.” The pay increase is effective August 1.
Denise Fedorow is a columnist and correspondent for the Goshen News. Readers may contact her at fed1@bnin.net. Follow Denise on Twitter @DeniseFedorow
Correspondent and columnist for The Goshen News
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