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Wilmore dodges brunt of storm

No major damage to homes or power lines reported

January 30, 2009|Tyler Young

The city of Wilmore got relatively lucky in dealing with Tuesday and Wednesday's ice storm. The city has not reported any major damage to homes or power lines, and Police Chief Steve Boven said there have not been any accidents reported.

The transmission on Wilmore's only snow plow and salt spreader, however, did go out Tuesday morning, but city workers found a replacement in Lexington and installed it in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, making it available for use during the worst of the mess.

"We were lucky enough to find a rebuilt transmission, so my staff spent from 3:30 (Tuesday) afternoon until after midnight last night replacing a transmission in a dump truck," City Utilities Director Dave Carlstedt said. "We had the crews out all night pulling branches out of streets and pushing them with backhoes."

Carlstedt said that the city's water situation is in good shape, unlike Nicholasville, which lost power to its water treatment plant and had to issue a water advisory. Wilmore's treatment plant has been working overtime to treat not only its own water, but extra water to send to Nicholasville.

"We have an interconnection between the city of Wilmore and the city of Nicholasville, which is a six-inch water main," Carlstedt said. "This is the first time we're using that. We're estimating they're probably using 250 gallons a minute."

Normally through the day, Wilmore would add extra water to its water towers to store for emergency situations, but now that extra water is going to Nicholasville.

"They don't know when they will get their electric restored, so we've basically committed to them that we will keep giving them as much water as we can as long as we can," Carlstedt said.

But that water is coming from the city's reservoir next to the treatment plant because the pumps at the Kentucky River stopped running Wednesday morning. Normally, the water in the reservoir can last the city for more than a week, but that could be shortened some with the extra pumping.

"We haven't been able to get down to our pumps," Carlstedt said. "Our reservoir is full, and that normally gives us about seven to 10 days of surplus water. The fact that we're giving some away to Nicholasville probably shortens that, but we've probably got at least four or five days of water available in the reservoir to take care of Wilmore and some extra to Nicholasville."

Carlstedt added that there have been some isolated incidents of homes losing electricity, but there have been no significant power outages.

"We've got a lot of little stuff happening; we've got a lot of cable and telephone stuff down," he said. "My understanding is there's no cable TV in Wilmore right now."

Carlstedt said that anyone in Wilmore with a problem with their roads or water should call city hall at 858-4411 or central dispatch at 858-5447. If they have a problem with their power or trees, they should call Kentucky Utilities at 1-800-981-0600.

"It's all about keeping the roads cleared and our snow plows up and running," he said. "We can handle the routine. Our people are tired - I've got guys that have been out for the better part of a 24-hour day - but everybody's got a good attitude about it and realizes that this is rare, but this is what we do."

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