Ice Damage

Like many other parts of Kansas, Rice County took a hard hit from the Dec. 11 ice storm. Broken trees are plentiful and power lines are still down nine days after the storm.

In the towns of McPherson (McPherson County) and Lyons (Rice County), residents have piled tree limbs along the curb, waiting for city pick-up crews.

Between Chase and Ellinwood, power-restoring crews from Colorado planted new power poles and restrung lines today.

With temperatures well above freezing, the ditches were soft and muddy and the power trucks could easily have gotten stuck.

The entire city of Lyons (pop. 3,700) was without electricity for five days. The Celebration Centre, a relatively new community building on the east side of town served as a shelter with 200 beds set up.

With the power off, including freezers and refrigerators, grocery stores and restaurants lost a lot of food. Before the food went bad, some of it was donated to the shelter and it was cooked on outdoor grills to feed residents.

I talked with Rose and Gerald Davis. “It’s spooky seeing your whole town dark,” Rose said. They stayed in their house – it got down to about 50 degrees inside.

The Davis’s drove the 30 miles to Hutchinson to find kerosene for an indoor heater and lamps. They still had hot water because they had a gas water heater. “But you didn’t want to step out of the shower into the cold air,” Rose said.

Amidst broken trees, the electronic sign at the Celebration Centre in Lyons included “Thank you, Linemen” along with their regular time and temperature display.