Long, Dark Wait Newman Lake Residents Go Weeks Without Power

For more than two weeks, Renee Hartshorn had been watching from the family room window of her Newman Lake home, hoping to see electrical line crews, tree cutters - anyone who could help undo the devastation of Ice Storm ‘96.

Most days she saw only a neighbor, a passing car, or some animals frolicking in the snow.

Off in the distance, she could hear snapping, sawing and other sounds of progress. But she had not seen any utility crews along her road. “It’s been very frustrating,” said Hartshorn, who is pregnant with her fifth child. “You call the power company and they can’t say they’re working on your road today. They just say they’re working in your area.”

Finally, on Wednesday a crew from Columbia Rural Electric of Dayton, Wash., found its way through the winding roads on the west side of the lake and began working in the area near Hartshorn’s home.

The densely treed Newman Lake area was the hardest hit by not just the ice storm but two subsequent snow storms that compounded the problem. Restoring power to the area was slow because of the area’s steep terrain.

Crews had to traverse the area on foot to replace downed power poles and miles of lines.

The sight of the utility truck and its three crewmen, weathered and weary from 18-hour work days, was a relief to Hartshorn. Her 18-month-old son, Cade, seemed to sense his mother’s excitement.

The little guy pulled out every toy truck he could find, racing them all around the floor, on the couch, the recliner - anywhere - apparently celebrating the possibility that power was about to be restored.

One of Hartshorn’s neighbors, Jeff Clark, got his electricity back late Tuesday, 14 days after the ice storm that knocked it out.

“My line is the line from hell,” said Clark. “If somebody sneezes in Denver, this one goes out.”

As he drives around in his yellow International pickup, Clark gets out and clears any debris from the road “to help out.”

Clark’s main concern in the past two weeks was his nine cattle corralled inside a powerless electric fence.

“Heifers have a poor understanding of the honor system,” he said. His cows had tried to break through the fence and Clark was worried about them wandering along the area’s roads.

Hartshorn’s concerns were for her dwindling wood supply. The wood pile was half gone from the constant use of the family’s wood stove - the A-frame’s only source of heat during the outage.

“We won’t make it through the winter with what’s left of the wood,” she said. “The stove’s been just eating it up.”

The family has lived on the same 15-acre site, surrounded by towering pines, for eight years, but just moved into their newly built home this past summer.

Hartshorn said Wednesday that she knew power crews were gradually moving toward her home on Mountain View Road.

“The last three days they were going gung-ho,” she said. “It’s a really big job.”

That’s to say the least.

Close to 100 utility workers were on the west side of the lake this week trying to restore power to about 100 homes.today, virtually all homes in the Newman Lake area will have power, said Inland Power and Light assistant manager Dave Clinton.

Inland contracted with several companies to assist its utility crews in the Newman Lake area.

Brian Schimmels, an excavator for Red Diamond Construction in Spokane, logged almost 200 hours last week. “That’s nothing compared to what most the other guys have worked,” he said.

In some places, the downed poles and lines have been all but impossible to reach. Many poles were erected on steep hillsides and lines were strung above deep gullies.

“We don’t even know how they got these poles in here originally,” Schimmels said.

One of his co-workers cleared access up a steep bluff to work on three downed poles. Schimmels was sent down into a ravine to saw up trees leaning against power lines attached to the downed poles. The painstaking task would take all day and would restore power to only a handful of homes.

The “hired and tired guns” working in Hartshorn’s area knew exactly what Schimmels meant.

“People need to know how demoralizing it is to put the same wire up five times,” said Darrin Wales, a lineman from Dayton.

Wales said the same lines kept snapping as more snow - and more trees - fell in the area. “From the day we got here we’ve been losing ground.”

But two things have helped keep the men on their feet: doughnuts and compassion.

“People see you and get out of their cars, shake your hands, give you coffee, doughnuts,” said Jeff Meredith, one of Wales’ coworkers. “It helps you a lot. It helps you want to get out there again - even if a wire goes down again.”

Wednesday’s snowstorm did not hit the Newman Lake area particularly hard and did little to hamper the utility crews’ efforts.

Back in her home, Renee Hartshorn was keeping her children, ages 18 months to 8 years, busy playing Yahtzee and lots of chess, or “chest” as the kids call it. The kids have been sledding like mad, hoping more snow will come, bringing more fun.

Not long after she spotted the utility crew from Dayton on Wednesday, the lights inside Hartshorn’s home blinked back.

Hartshorn said she was thankful to get her power back after 15 days, but there was bad news, as well. The ignition switch on her furnace had quit working.

She called a repair company and was told that problems with ignition switches were fairly common after lengthy power outages. She was also told that it would be at least Tuesday before a repairman could get out to her house to fix it.

“It’s beautiful here,” she said. “But I’ve never seen it so bad.”

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