Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The most notable day, certainly while I was in Indianola
was last Wednesday, when early in the morning they basically said, yeah,
we're not so sure about tonight because there is quite
this event that we think is going to be coming
through nebrask and it's probably going to affect central Iowa
where this event was taking place. Sure enough, I was
sitting there on a what was it Wednesday afternoon, probably
(00:22):
in the five o'clock hour. That sounded about right. Sounds
about right. We broke in wall to wall right before,
right around like five twelve or so. Okay, Yeah, So
what was it like over here? Because I was watching
it through social media as we kind of prepared, it
dissipated significantly before it got to us. The winds were,
you know, twenty five thirty mile an hour gust. It
(00:43):
was nothing like what you guys had wind wise here.
It was a lot of rain. We've got a ton
of rain in the week that I was there. But
seeing the immediate power outage and texting with my next
door neighbor just to you know, see how things were going.
Power was out until the following morning in my neighborhood.
I know many people as we are going to learn
and talk about have been less lucky. I mean, all
(01:05):
my friends just had his power resort yesterday. There are
still twenty thousand people in Douglas County that don't have
power right now. Yeah, So what was it like watching
this thing blow through here? Well, rain and a whole
lot of wind. It came by quick, for sure, But
I mean I've never seen anything like it. It was
amazing to watch it build from from nowhere. I mean
(01:27):
it just just kept It was like a freight train
that just kept building up steam until it got here
and saw wind speeds of ninety plus observed there at
Epley at the airport. I mean, this wasn't just like
in somebody's backyard. This is like where the National Weather
Service takes a lot of weather measurements. Yeah, and it's
it was as advertised, you know, I was. Tree trees
(01:51):
are still down, crews are still working. It's amazing. We
still have twenty one, twenty one and a half thousand
right now on oppd's power out at your map people
without power still. I know a whole lot of people
got it back yesterday afternoon.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
And this is another thing right that this in where
we are, we are told that there's a press conference
that is going to be taking place roughly at two
thirty this afternoon. Yeah, if we see that, we are
going to pop in and give that to you as
we can live so you are up to date, because
I'm sure we're talking to some people that have had
major outages and just the recovery efforts in which it's
(02:26):
going to take. I do have a big branch that
came down from my tree. I don't know how many
more branches could possibly fall out of this tree. This
is at least the fourth one this year in my
backyard and I came home to that, and it's good
that we're going to get some help with those as well.
So you know, sometimes I harvest those for firewood. This time,
(02:47):
I don't think I'm going to do that, because the
City of Omaha going house to house to pick up
tree debris this week. They had to remove all the
road blockages, certainly, but like if you had something laning
in your you might be wondering what am I supposed
to do with this? And if you can't get that
tree debris to any of these drop off sides that
they have been listing, they're going to come pick things up,
(03:10):
according to Mayor Stothart, So don't put the debris in
waste bags that won't be collected. You don't have to
cut any of the tree limbs down into smaller parts.
They're going to be doing that takes two to three
weeks probably to pick that stuff up, So you're just
going to have to kind of be patient with the
way that that goes. But that's certainly welcome news if
you're wondering about how I'm going to be able to
(03:30):
get that branch that landed in your yard and all
that stuff taken care of.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
It is two twelve.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Like I said, we're going to be a little bit
different in our time this hour as we try to
kind of carve out the right amount of time at
the bottom, assuming that we see a live press conference
from the mayor and also some other city officials, including
from OPPD, and try to understand what the next steps
are as we still have a solid amount of people
tens of thousands of people in the metro area here
(03:58):
without power five days after this weather event. More on
the way on that on news radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Emrie Sunger on news radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Now that we found ourselves in a year where a
bunch of it's happening. It just feels like you're not
getting a break too much from some of these major events.
This one was a bo echo that resembled what a
derachol would look like. I don't know if it met
the criteria of a de rachel, because of deracho by
definition has to extend I think four hundred miles intact,
(04:35):
and I'm not sure that the conditions lasted long enough
for that to be the case. That doesn't necessarily mean
just because it wasn't, by definition technically a de racho,
which again it may have been, I just I'm not sure.
I didn't see that terminology being used. But the damage
is very similar. And I lived through a pretty powerful
deracho that came through central and eastern Iowa back in
(04:58):
twenty twenty, so I have just I have some experience
with what these things look like, what they feel like
cedar rapids. When that one happened in twenty twenty, there
were people without power for upwards I think of over
a week. I know OPPD is trying really hard to
avoid that from happening, but a storm like this, and
(05:18):
this is just one example on my street here in Omaha,
just up the road a little bit. It was a
big spruce tree, you know those Christmas tree looking things.
It doesn't have like big, long, heavy branches. It's just
kind of, you know, like fully intact Christmas tree looking thing,
but those can get big. And with the winds, it
was uprooted, pulled out of the ground, knocked over into
(05:40):
the middle of the road and took the power line
with it as it was blowing over. And when it
took a power line with it, instead of just snapping
the lines, it pulled the power pole out of the
ground and across the street as well. That is a
different type of problem than the line got snapped. And
there's still like this existing infrastructure is still there just
(06:02):
to make a quick repair. So I know that there's
a lot of people who are frustrated, and I can
understand this. I'm in a neighborhood group where I live,
and many people our block was pretty lucky. We had
our power restored the next morning. I wasn't here in town,
but my neighbor reported to me that that is something
that happened. We were very lucky compared to many people
(06:22):
who are still without power. I tend to feel like
we need to have a little bit of grace because
we don't exactly know what the challenges are to restore
some of this in some of these areas. But I
know at the same time that does not make anybody
who's been without power for the last five days feel
any better about anything. And I totally get that. Now,
(06:45):
what was your story? Did you?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Did we lose power here?
Speaker 4 (06:49):
You were?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
You were in the building? Well, this building did. But
what's nice about this radio station is we've got plenty
of generators, so you can hear the generators click on.
And yeah, so I know that the building's power was
restored by the time I got back here the next day.
When I left that night around eight thirty, we were
still on generator power. But so it was pretty quick
(07:12):
to be restored here. I'm not exactly sure at the
timetable there and where I live, it was less than
twenty four hours that I had the power out. So
I was one of the lucky ones for sure. Yeah,
and I'm sure what was the number? Almost two hundred
and twenty thousand people. This was the largest outage event
ever for OPPD WOW. The previous record was about one
(07:35):
hundred and eighty eight thousand people who lost power after
a thunderstorm on July ninth to twenty twenty one. Then
before that, you're ready for this, one hundred and fifty
six thousand in June of two thousand and eight. Before
that was a snowstorm in nineteen ninety nine or nineteen
ninety seven October of ninety seven, one hundred and fifty thousand,
and those are the only four times in the history
(07:58):
of the OPPD that there has been an outage of
more than one hundred thousand people. Wow, this was just
the fourth one. This was the first one that got
over two hundred thousand. I mean, it's it's difficult to
explain or to understand or underestimate specifically what the what
else could create that, and even how to prevent something
(08:21):
like that in the future because again, and I don't
want to do a full speculation because I know next
to nothing about how power grids work. But there might
need to be some sort of addressing AFT, like let's
worry about getting the power astored now. But I think
in general, between you know, the OPPD, our city councils,
(08:44):
even the state government, when the unicameral you know, takes
up issues like this next year, maybe we need to
talk about how we can fortify our power grid even
just a little bit more to protect ourselves from I mean,
what it was a horrible storm, but this is Midwestern weather,
Isn't that kind of part of the thing. Like we
have Midwestern weather that is incredibly unpredictable, and I'm looking
(09:08):
at the largest events in OPPD history. We have thunderstorms, windstorm, snowstorm,
ice storm, tornado d racho in twenty twenty, the one
that I previously mentioned which took out fifty seven thousand. Now,
I know it wasn't as strong as it eventually would
get when it was in Omaha, but that day fifty
seven thousand people in Omaha had lost power, this one
two hundred and nineteen thousand. Yeah, So I think if
(09:30):
there's a way to like fortify what we already have
and maybe make some improvements to protect ourselves like this,
probably not a bad idea trade debris location by the way,
before you know, we know that there are going to
be places that you can that will get picked up,
as I mentioned earlier, but here are some that you
can take this off Levi Carter Park one hundred and
(09:52):
fifty six in f Street Football Field, to keep an
eye on that Green Bryer Park, Heflinger Park in Alvays Park.
So those are the five tree debris drop off sites.
Those are open from seven am to seven pm daily.
Right now, if you have the ability to carry your
own tree debris over there, if you're not willing to
wait for the city to come and scoop those up,
(10:15):
We're going to go ahead and step aside again right
now with the plan to come back here right before
the bottom of the hour, with the anticipation that there
is going to be a press conference that was going
to address some of these oppd concerns and an update
on power that's going to be taking place here. We
are led to believe in the less than ten minutes,
So we'll be back for that and get that to
(10:36):
you live, assuming it happens on time. So stick around.
Emory Songer with you along with Matt case on news
radio eleven to ten KFAB.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Emery Songer on news radio eleven ten kfab.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Did if Brian email me just to remind me that
the number of outages is essentially accounts and not necessarily
people affected in Douglas County For instance, the latest map
shows what Matt like twenty thousand people twenty one and
a half last I checked, Okay, so twenty one and
a half, and that is customers I suppose, or accounts
(11:14):
related specifically to the OPPD. There could be three, four
or five people in any one of those accounts that
could be affected by the outage. So I mean, you
could take this multiply it by a few and that's
probably a closer perspective of how many people are truly
affected by this outage. Still five days later, now again,
(11:38):
I don't they expect roughly twelve six hundred customers should
have power by the end of today, almost another six
thousand have power by the end of Wednesday, which is
after a week after this event.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Unprecedented.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
There's never been a larger outage event in the history
of OPPD, which I think we all can leave considering
you had ninety plus mile an hour winds measured at
the airport, so if you want to just think about
the way that that went down. At the same time,
I think there is some information that we might be
learning if there is this press conference as we anticipate
(12:17):
coming up here near and around the bottom of this
two o'clock hour, and we will bring that to you
assuming that we are able to see it and it
be live. If we don't have the ability to give
that to you live, we will find a way to
bring that to you as concise and as accurate and
information as we possibly can over the next little bit.
(12:39):
But while we're here, you heard the weather forecast. It's
a hot one out there right now. I mean the
temperature has definitely still been really high over the weekend.
What are we looking like for the next few days. Well,
the nice thing is things you're going to cool down now.
Some people might say, yeah, right in time for my
power to get back on. But today is a high
and ninety nine. But tonight and tomorrow things start to cool. Well,
(13:00):
just to high eighty two tomorrow. It is gonna be
pretty humid tomorrow, but just to high eighty two and
you're gonna get north winds ten to fifteen miles per hour,
so it'll feel different tomorrow than today. High eighty four Wednesday,
and then you do have some chances of rain and
thunderstorms Wednesday evening and night and into Thursday morning as well,
but partly Sunday, high of eighty two Thursday, and then
(13:22):
if you peek ahead at this weekend right now, basically
the same looking at temperatures in the low eighties, possibility
of some rain and storms this next Sunday. So we'll
see there. But yeah, the today looks like kind of
the peak of the hot weather.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
All right, Well, that's good to hear.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
At the same time, like you said, for a lot
of people, I think, come on, man, you can't have
you know, cooled down just a hair just a little bit,
as the weather you know, was scorching essentially, and you're
sitting in a house potentially that has absolutely no power.
That's a difficult situation and difficult scenario. So yeah, it's what.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
We're looking at.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
As mentioned, we got our eyes here that we're going
to be paying attention to as each and every hopefully
we have local coverage of this press conference, which you
never know how on time a lot of this stuff
is going to be. We certainly know that there's extenuating circumstances. Heck,
(14:27):
the President was supposed to give that address that we
were doing a few weeks ago at NATO, and we
were told it was four thirty and then we were
told it was five thirty. And then it didn't happen
until six thirty, which really annoyed the heck out of me.
You know, you spend this entire day kind of talking
about what this should look like, and we ended up
not even getting a chance to talk about her here
live on the show, even though it was scheduled to
be well within our windows. So whatever I mean, you know,
(14:50):
it is what it is. But like I said, we're
here and we are paying attention to the screen. As
soon as they show us that something is happening, we
are going to go there and let you listen to
that here as well. Now, with all of this being said,
I think that it is also appropriate to kind of
talk about the amount of rain that fell last week.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Now.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I was in Indianola, Iowa, which is in central Iowa,
and they picked up something like ten or twelve inches
over like a four or five day period, which made
it really difficult for the ballooning activities we were trying
to do. But just all these places were taking on
an inordinate amount of water, Like, was it that much
rain here as well?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Did you?
Speaker 5 (15:30):
Like?
Speaker 1 (15:30):
I know that there was a ton of rain that
came down as part of the Dracho type storm it
wasn't specifically De Racho, but of that storm that landed
here on Wednesday, but there was a lot of rain
that was coming through even before that. Right we did
get quite a bit of rain. I don't have totals
in front of me. I've been more paying attention to
the wind speeds, just the fair enough crazy wind speeds
(15:50):
that we saw. I don't think we had any issues
with any major flooding like we've seen, you know, earlier
in the summer. But luckily there wasn't storms to follow that.
That was kind of just a one evening event and
then the furnace got turned on right back on again
as we dove right back into more hot weather for
(16:12):
the rest of the week and weekend. M Yeah, no,
there's there's no doubt to me that this is one
of the years, one of the biggest years I think of,
whether that I can remember. I don't know about you,
but definitely feels like I don't know. I just i'd
like a break. Can we get like a can we
(16:32):
get like a calm? And then in the South they're
talking about Debbie. Now, Yeah, you know, remember Barrel flew
into South Texas and everybody was really freaked out about that.
It was like category five at one point, and then
now we have Debbie that's kind of hovering on the
northern part of Florida and into Georgia coming out of
the Gulf of Mexico. I wouldn't mind just having, you know,
(16:53):
like a few weeks of nothing, right, A few weeks
of just nothing would be would would be great, right,
don't you think? But again, baggers can be choosers in
a lot of ways. We'll do the best that we can.
So I'm watching the screen. We aren't seeing anything right now.
I think I'm going to dip into another break because
we kind of split this up, and we will interrupt
(17:14):
that as soon as we can. If we are seeing
some activity in regards to this scheduled press conference that
is supposed to happen sometime here in this half of
the two o'clock hour, So stick around. We'll give that
to you if we can. Here on news radio eleven
ten kfab Emory sockerback here and we are now we're
interrupting that commercial. We will finish that commercial break in
a little bit. But as advertised, there is some break
(17:36):
news as Mayor Geene st Author is addressing people, including
with the OPPD about the power outages right.
Speaker 6 (17:42):
Now, update and then open it up for questions after
everybody is finished speaking with me. Today is Javier Fernandez,
who is the CEO of OPPD. Also, Police Chief Todd Schmater.
Whitney Shipley is here and she is the director of
Douglas County Emergency Management Agency officially announced today. Kim Rowell
(18:05):
is here, Vice president of Cox Communication, Matt Kalsovich, who
is the Parks director for the City of Omaha. Jim Tyler,
he is an assistant a public Works director over environmental
services for the City of Omaha.
Speaker 7 (18:20):
So all those folks are.
Speaker 6 (18:21):
Here today and will be giving you an update and
then also answering your questions when you have them. So,
first of all, I would like to tell you that
I did sign a local disaster proclamation last Friday. When
Whitney Shipley is speaking today, she is going to tell
you exactly what that means for the citizens and what
(18:42):
that means for Omaha as we continue to recover from
last Wednesday storm. So I want to make sure people
know that that has been done. The disaster proclamation was
signed last Friday. Secondly, we've been talking a lot about
a free city wide curbside i'd pick up of limbs
and storm debris. We talked last week that we were
(19:05):
going to ask everybody to have those items out on
their curb and we would start today by all of us,
I think and me included many public works everybody else
driving through the city this weekend, it looks like a
lot of people aren't ready for that quite yet. A
lot of people there are still some people without power,
and so we want to start where if they're out
(19:27):
on the curb, now that's fine, you.
Speaker 7 (19:29):
Know you're way ahead of it.
Speaker 6 (19:30):
But if we're going to give people till we're not
going to start till this thursday, as far as that goes.
So we'll start Thursday, and Jim Tyler from public Works
is going to go into a little bit more detail
because we are going to provide a map that you
will have access to on the city's homepage and the
public Works page that you could pretty much see which
(19:53):
public works district you are in. There's five throughout the city,
and where they are at if they're in your neighborhood,
if you'reighborhood has been complete our plan right now, this
will be for the entire City of Omaha not preferential
treatment to any district at all the entire city. But
until we are out there and really know the magnitude
(20:14):
of how much debris that public works and the city
is picking up when they do this city wide collection,
we don't really know how long it will take. So
you know, your area may be done the end of
this week, my area may be done in three weeks.
Speaker 7 (20:29):
We just really don't know.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
So we are asking people to get those items out
on the curb and then we will hopefully have more
information on the map that we will talk about in
a little bit so you'll know pretty much where they
are now. This collection, i have to say, could take weeks.
Speaker 7 (20:49):
We just don't know yet.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
It could take a month is what we are probably
predicting right now onto Labor Day to get the entire
city done. So we still encourage peace people, if they
have the resources and they can drop off their debris
at our five debris drop off sites all over the city,
to do that and to continue doing that, but we
(21:12):
understand many people cannot, and so we will provide this
curbside service. The curb side service that the City of
Omaha is providing will pick up the paper bags that
you put out on your curb. They do not have
to have the sticker for the City of Omaha to
pick them up. But keep in mind they will do
(21:33):
that once and I don't know exactly when they will
be in your neighborhood, but we will pick up the
debris out there. We will pick up paper bags without stickers.
If you put your debris in any other kind of
receptacle like old garbage cans and things, we ask that
you don't do that. We asked that you put the
just a debris out on the sidewalk, and you still
(21:55):
can fill your ninety six gallon carts that you have
with debris too, So we want to make sure you
know that.
Speaker 7 (22:01):
Now.
Speaker 6 (22:02):
When FCC comes by and does your regular trash collection
on your regular day, they may be delayed because of
all the articles and everything the materials they're picking up,
but they will also pick up the paper bags, but
they require stickers. So the FCC pickup do still require stickers,
(22:24):
and those will be picked up on your regular collection day,
although they could be delayed a little bit. So you know,
this is a process. This was a very, very terrible storm.
Speaker 7 (22:33):
That we had.
Speaker 6 (22:33):
It affected all of Omaha, and it's going to take
some time to completely recover from that. So I think
that I just wanted to get that out in the beginning.
Our team, when our city team is out there doing
the city wide curbside collection, they will have skid loaders,
they will have chainsaws. But like I said, they will
(22:54):
be picking up a lot of debris. But right now,
we really don't know the extent of it because it
looks like there is a lot. People have asked me
a lot about spoiled food. Spoil food can go in
your regular ninety six gallon card. Please don't put up
courage side, Please don't put it in the paper bags.
Speaker 7 (23:11):
We asked that you put it in your cards.
Speaker 6 (23:13):
So with that, I think the man of the hour
right now is Pavier Fernandez with OPPD. He's going to
give you an update on where we are with the
powder outages.
Speaker 7 (23:22):
So pap here right, Thank you mayor do you good?
Thank you mayor thank you all.
Speaker 8 (23:36):
First of all, let me start by acknowledging we are
working really hard around the clock. We have over approximately
fifteen hundred boots on the ground right now as we speak,
in this heat, working tirelessly to get your power back
on to give a little bit of context. OPPV serves
approximately four hundred and seven thousand meters in our thirteen
(23:59):
county ratory. At the peak of the storm on Wednesday night,
approximately two hundred and twenty thousand of those meters lost power.
Speaker 7 (24:07):
That's more than half of the meters we serve.
Speaker 8 (24:10):
I'm going to talk a little bit about the storm
in a minute, but it's unprecedented. It's the worst storm
we've experienced, at least in the history of OBPD. Out
of the two hundred and twenty thousand outages, we've been
able to restore ninety percent of those. As of an
hour ago, we had approximately twenty two thousand outages still remaining.
(24:30):
I am incredibly proud of the organization for the work
that that they've done.
Speaker 7 (24:34):
Our mutual aid partners, I'm going to talk a.
Speaker 8 (24:36):
Little bit about them in a minute, but.
Speaker 7 (24:40):
We're not counting these as a success yet.
Speaker 8 (24:42):
We cannot go out and do a victory lap because
there are still twenty two thousand families and businesses without power,
and we understand how disruptive this is, how dangerous this is.
Speaker 7 (24:52):
It's really hot outside.
Speaker 8 (24:53):
It's going to get even warmer outside staying hydrated and
taking care of yourselves and your family is incredible important.
We take that very seriously and we will not rest
until every single one has the power back on. We
have about I said, about twenty two thousand outages more.
Speaker 7 (25:16):
Or less as of right now.
Speaker 8 (25:18):
We expect that half of those, between twelve and thirteen
thousand of those will be restored by the end of
tomorrow the end of the day tomorrow, with the remaining
will be restored between.
Speaker 7 (25:29):
Then and the end of the day Friday.
Speaker 8 (25:32):
I want to also remind everyone this is the fifth
large storm we have experienced in our service territory just
this year.
Speaker 7 (25:41):
It's catching us already tired.
Speaker 8 (25:44):
We had a tornado just a few weeks ago, and
in between we had many severe storms without it, just
ranging from twenty thousand to.
Speaker 7 (25:52):
Thirty forty thousand. So this is no easy task for
women and men.
Speaker 8 (25:58):
I want to knowledge the work that our employees have
been doing.
Speaker 7 (26:02):
They're tired too, and I fully.
Speaker 8 (26:05):
Understand our customers are tired and they want answers, they
want timeline and we will get your power back on.
But I do want to acknowledge that between those five
large storms this year, we have already restored power. We've
made restorations to three hundred and twelve thousand meters. Remember
our service territories four hundred and seven thousand. We've done
(26:27):
an immense amount of restoration. This year has not been
kind to the system nor to our customer owners. The
damage caused by this storm is also very different than
previous storms. The largest storm on record happened used to
be July of twenty twenty one. If you remember being
(26:48):
here in Omaha, that was a pretty devastating storm. Well,
that storm pails in comparison to this one. Normally do
we have more outages with this one, but the amount
of the type of damages we got this time around
is significantly different. For comparison, the first four days of
restoration of this storm, we have replaced significantly more poles,
(27:12):
cross arms, transformers than we did on the entire storm
restoration three years ago that was seven days of restoration.
We have already restored significantly more, replaced significantly more equipment.
That means that more equipment was damaged this time around
that we had.
Speaker 7 (27:29):
Three years ago.
Speaker 8 (27:31):
The poles snapped in half and broke, cross arms broken.
Speaker 7 (27:36):
It takes a lot of time for us first to
access those poles and then to restore those poles.
Speaker 8 (27:42):
To that end, I want to announce also that in
twenty twenty one, between oppd's crews all of our employees,
we usually have three hundred to three hundred and fifty
boots on the ground on a normal day. In twenty
twenty one, we augmented that in nine hundred and fifty
boots on the ground. As of this morning, we have
(28:02):
almost fifteen hundred puts on the ground, five times more
people than we typically have on a regular day here
at OPPD. I do want to acknowledge the amazing help
we've gotten. And I met with the Governor a couple
of days ago and was very proud to tell him
Nebraska is showing up strong. We have crews as we
(28:26):
speak helping us from Nebraska Public Power District, Loop Public Power,
Nebraska Rural Electric Association, the Lincoln Electric System.
Speaker 7 (28:34):
They also got quite.
Speaker 8 (28:36):
A bit of damage and they are sending some of
their crews now Grand Island Utilities, Hastings Utilities, the Cities
of Beatrice, Cities of Fremont, and Southern Public Power District.
Speaker 7 (28:46):
Also, we have many private contractors.
Speaker 8 (28:49):
Elie Myers w Ares Electric, Collective, Strategic Resources INTRINT, JF
Electric and MICROTS and.
Speaker 7 (28:58):
I will be remassed if I didn't ask.
Speaker 8 (28:59):
If I recognize also our investor and utility partners just
across the river, Mid American Energy Comet from Chicago and
Averagy down in Kansas City. Men and women who are
out there doing that work representing all of these companies
deserve an immense gratitude from from all of.
Speaker 7 (29:17):
Us, especially from OPPD. And I want to publicly acknowledge
that the storm.
Speaker 8 (29:22):
The National Weather Service tells us that this storm was
particularly rare in terms of the huge area affected and
the strength of the wind coosts. It pretty much hit
our entire service territory from Nebraska City to Blair, just
a wall of wind of almost one hundred miles an hour,
and it was sustained.
Speaker 7 (29:39):
It's incredibly rare.
Speaker 8 (29:40):
To see this type of storms when we're used to
wind ghosts.
Speaker 7 (29:44):
This was no wind cost.
Speaker 8 (29:45):
There were sustained winds for a really long area, for
a really long period of time. We believe that this
was among the top five strongest wind speeds ever recorded
in Omaha and in a very heavily dense populated area.
So that's the reason where we are where we are today.
(30:08):
No resource is being spared. Our Board of Directors has
been informed. I've spoken with a mayor. I spoken with
the governor. We are not sparing any resources. We need
to bring power back on as soon as we possibly can,
and you have my commitment that we will do that
as soon as possible. We will have a cruise working
(30:29):
overnight limited cruise.
Speaker 7 (30:31):
We do send cruse to rest.
Speaker 8 (30:34):
It's hard and it's dangerous to work in the dark,
but we will still have people working overnight around the clock.
Speaker 7 (30:40):
Our cross are.
Speaker 8 (30:41):
Working sixteen hour shifts five consecutive days.
Speaker 7 (30:45):
They're retired. We need to give him some rest. They'll
be working here.
Speaker 8 (30:48):
Until maybe nine or ten pm tonight, and they will
be back at it first thing tomorrow morning at six am.
If you see our cruise, I'm going to ask you
to please leave them alone. They're working really hard. They're
trying to get your power back on. Distractions really just
slow things down. They really appreciate when you thank them,
and if you want to do that.
Speaker 7 (31:08):
That's what Nebraskans do.
Speaker 8 (31:09):
We support each other and we thank all of our
public service.
Speaker 7 (31:15):
Employees.
Speaker 8 (31:15):
So I want to ask you again for your patients,
and I am sorry. I'm sorry that your power is out.
Twenty two thousand of you, twenty two thousand families and
businesses are still waiting for that power.
Speaker 7 (31:27):
It's not fun to be with that power. It's dangerous.
Speaker 8 (31:31):
I want to acknowledge that, and I want to tell
you I'm sorry for that and assure you that we
have every single resource deployed so that you can get
your power back on and you can go on with
your life as fast as we possibly can.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Okay, So that is a hobbyer Fernandez, and he's wrapping
up his statement. He's the CEO at OPPD. We'll step aside.
We'll keep track of what the press asks. I'm sure
it's going to be some clarification and we will re
clarify things when we come back here on News for
you eleven to ten KFAB So that press conference continues
and we're not going to pop back into it at
least at this point. But basically OPD the Omaha Police
(32:08):
Department talking about most of the emergency calls they had
received in the aftermath of the storm where pet down
power lines and wires and everything like that, and they're
trying to assist with any of the drop off sites,
which are include Alvey's Park, Greenbrier Park, Hefflinger Park, the
football field at one fifty six, then f Street, and
Levi Carter Park. Those are the five tree debris drop
off sites. They will start picking up tree debris from
(32:31):
the side of the street if you just put it
out on the side of the curb, starting on Thursday,
but they say that process could take up to a
month or so based on the fact they have no
idea how long that will take. We'll give you more
information about this and different things that we need to
keep paying attention to. Is we try to restore power
to Omaha, and you're listening to Emery Songer here on
news radio eleven ten KFAB. We'll give you more information
(32:51):
about what you've missed over the last half hour as
this press conference has been going on. So again, this
is Kim Roll speaking now in the press conference from
Cox Communications.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
About forty percent of our customer base on Thursday morning.
We now have ninety four percent of those customers restored.
Our typical mo is we follow power and so what
that means as public Works comes in and clears everything,
Avier and his team come in get the power restored,
and then we come in and start looking to see
(33:21):
exactly what's going on, whether it's with our equipment or
in the home. The other piece that I need to
make sure that everyone two things that everyone understands. We
also have customers calling in that have additional damage to
their home, again where they may have power, but they
don't have cock services. And so those are the tickets
that we have to work individually, and as of right now,
(33:45):
we've got twelve hundred of those. So I encourage you
if you if you do have power and you don't
have cock services, please dial four oh two nine three
three thousand and we will get you on the list
and start assessed seeing what's going on. Now, let me
just explain that just a little bit more so very
(34:05):
similar Lee, we are also customers of OPPD. They are
also a very great partner and we are thrilled to
have been working with them for the last forty five years.
But our network, and some the way our network is designed,
also has powering. That is, we call it upstream, and
so you may have power to your house, but the
(34:26):
equipment in our network that powers your house may not
have power yet. And while we typically have generators and everything.
Just know too, the cruis are out every night filling
up the generator tanks and with diesel and propane and
natural gas and all that fun stuff. So we just
ask for your patients. We understand how frustrating it is.
(34:50):
I empathize right like I'm sure all of us have
lost power too. I know I again, so I apologize
like Javier, and please.
Speaker 7 (34:58):
Just give us a call and we'll see what we
can do.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
And again, thank you, thank you, thank you for your
patience with us, Thank you, mayors, author, thank you.
Speaker 6 (35:05):
Can I know that OPBD is still encouraging people to
let them know if there are outages. You know, we
still are having some new outages as we still have
some limbs that are falling and breaking some of the lines.
So if you have an outage, OPPD does want to
know if you can't get through their line, their phone line,
(35:25):
they're encouraging you to use their app, the City of Omaha.
Also we have an app now Mobile Omaha, that I
would encourage you to sign up for that is not interactive,
but we use that to give out information.
Speaker 7 (35:39):
You could sign up for. Text messages emails.
Speaker 6 (35:41):
Are both on Mobile Omaha also on my web page,
the city's home page, and my Facebook. We are constantly
giving updates throughout the day of information that we want
people to know, so we still want to hear from you.
And then my hotline it's for four four or five
five five five. Still getting a lot of calls in
(36:03):
the hotline. I know over the weekend my staff answered
over three hundred emails that came in, and so there's
still a lot of information that we want to get
out to people, and we want to be able to
answer your questions too. But I think you heard the
same thing with everybody up here.
Speaker 7 (36:19):
We know it was bad.
Speaker 6 (36:20):
We know it was the worst storm that we've experienced
in our lifetime, and we ask people to please be patient,
and they're out there as many people as possible as
working all the time, hopefully that when the debris five
debris sides slowed down a little bit. Our Parks Department,
if you have questions about our parks, they have not
been able to get out to our parks that much,
(36:40):
so then they have a big cleanup to do in
our parks and our walking trails too, so those are
kind of secondary to making sure the trucks can get
through the neighborhood and get your power restored first. So
with that, we are open for questions, and any questions
you all come up here to answer it.
Speaker 7 (36:57):
So you got a mic, I'm a question for mister Tyler. Okay,
we saw cruise, I saw CRUs out picking up some
of that curve.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Signs were you already today?
Speaker 9 (37:05):
And he went at that and the yellow is active
sort of what are there people with the city picking
up curve?
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Signed degree right now?
Speaker 7 (37:15):
Sure?
Speaker 9 (37:15):
So the decision was made to start Thursday about noon today,
and so before that that showed where we were going
to start this morning. Okay, so we'll go back into
those areas when we start the whole neighborhood. And so
people still have till Thursday to get out. But we
weren't sitting around. We were out there going with a
(37:38):
normal plan that said let's go in all five districts.
But we saw that we needed to take a step
back and give people a little bit more time.
Speaker 7 (37:45):
Looked when they.
Speaker 6 (37:46):
Were out today, it just looked like I'm sure Jim
agree said it was a little hit and miss.
Speaker 7 (37:50):
Some people had those out, some people didn't.
Speaker 6 (37:52):
Some people were still, like I said, didn't have power
and it just didn't seem like they had enough time
to get everything. So yeah, they did start picking up
like we said, and then we decided, you know, it's
better to give people more time. We will cover those
areas again, but we want to make it officially Thursday,
and then, like I said, it will continue on until
(38:13):
everything is picked up. But this could be I mean
we even estimate it could be four weeks.
Speaker 7 (38:19):
That's the entire city we're doing, and it is.
Speaker 6 (38:21):
Free pick up, so we want to make sure we
emphasize that, yes, you break this down as.
Speaker 10 (38:29):
It's also so Thursday to start picking on her side
at one time to have it.
Speaker 7 (38:35):
Step out o.
Speaker 9 (38:36):
Our cruis are working seven to seven. If you should
have it out Wednesday if you can, but they're going
to be starting at seven in the morning.
Speaker 10 (38:43):
Okay, So in order to catch up, make sure you
get your.
Speaker 9 (38:47):
Step out or have it out by Wednesday, absolutely by
seven in the morning. Correct, And what condition is the
reapp to me? In we're asking people not to really
cut it up. We're gonna have heavy equipment operators, we're
gonna have chainsaws, we're gonna have big trucks in there
so we can take the big, heavy material. Okay, So
(39:08):
we're not putting size limitations on the size of the branches,
the length of the branches. We're not saying cut it
on a bundle, right, take take the big stuff out
to the curb and we'll handle them.
Speaker 10 (39:20):
How close do the curve do?
Speaker 9 (39:23):
We want you to get it as close to the
street that you can. We understand some of these piles
are big. We understand some of them are going to
bleed over into the street a little bit. Okay, we
understand some of them we're going to block the sidewalk
a little bit, but we're going to try to ask
people to avoid that if they can. But get it
close to the curb, if you can, get it in
the street a little bit, as long as you're not
(39:44):
blocking a drive lane, you know where a car would
normally be parked.
Speaker 7 (39:48):
Okay, but get it as close to the street as
you can.
Speaker 10 (39:52):
And if you haven't gotten to tiwhere by Thursday, people
should should leave it there.
Speaker 7 (39:58):
Yes, you take a lot.
Speaker 9 (40:00):
Yes, Yes, we don't know exactly how long this is
going to take until we work for a few days.
So we're going to try to give updates occasionally if
we know more information, But for now, the information is
get it out there for Thursday seven in the morning
and leave it there till we come by and pick
it up.
Speaker 10 (40:18):
And what is rough dead time and date to take
your stuff to get reside.
Speaker 7 (40:23):
If you help out the sea.
Speaker 6 (40:27):
Yeah, I think I mentioned that earlier, but we said
a week from this coming Wednesday, so that would be
August fourteenth, and so we will keep What we are
saying is we will keep those five sides open till
August fourteenth. That would give people two weeks from the
date of the storm, and then we'll reevaluate. So you know,
if there's still a lot of traffic at some of those,
(40:48):
we might reevaluate and keep one or two open.
Speaker 7 (40:51):
But I think that at least gives people a time
frame to know.
Speaker 6 (40:54):
That they've got, you know, right now as of today,
they got about another week and a half to try
to get that out. To the sites that we have,
I will say that, you know, some of them were
getting pretty full, like Tewell was getting really full, so
is Heflinger. Heflinger opened up a secondary site and they're
parking lot. But I will tell you Levi Carter and
(41:15):
then Alvays, which is about sixtieth in Harrison, which was
a sixth site that we opened up a few days
after we opened the original.
Speaker 7 (41:23):
They have plenty of capacity.
Speaker 6 (41:25):
So if you got the ability to drive a little
further Levi Carter in North Omaha and Alves which is
you know around South Omaha, still has a lot of
capacity in those areas, all.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Right, So that is Mayor Jean Stouth.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
We don't I don't think we need to hear every
single question they're going to ask, but we'll recap that.
Like you mentioned, the important things you need to know
is the Javier Hernandez, who is the CEO of OPPD,
said about twenty two thousand customers or meters of power
still not in like, not restored at this point five
(42:00):
days after this storm. They're saying they're trying really hardly
have fifteen hundred people working. That's over five times as
many as usual, and they're working very hard to try
to make sure things happen. There was a lot of
damage to the infrastructure of the power lines and includes
poles snapped to the tops of the poles were snapped
wires that were sliced as part of some of the
(42:21):
wind damage that occurred in trees that have taken them
out and they say, we appreciate the patients, but we're
working as hard as we can and we're going to
try to restore I think the number was roughly twelve
thousand they expect to restore by the end of today,
and then an additional six thousand that they're hoping to
get restored by the end of Wednesday. They're going to
be doing that and working around the clock. They said
(42:41):
they'll even have a shift overnight basically, even though that's
quite dangerous work to try to hustle and get as
many of these power sites that are still unrestored restored
as quickly as possible. Also, the tree debris, if you
have it and you want to drop it off, you
have until next Wednesday to draw it off at one
of five locations Levi Carter Park and Alvey's Park. Those
(43:04):
are two parks the Mayor Stoth just mentioned that have
a lot of capacity. If you're willing to drive to
those spots, there's plenty of space for you to drop
your stuff off. Also, one fifty sixth the f Street,
there's a football field there that's a pickup site or
a drop off side, I should say. Of tree debris
Heflinger Park and Greenbrier Park. Those are the five spots
that you can get your branches or your tree debris
(43:26):
and drop them off if you're willing or able to
do that. If you cannot do that, starting this Thursday
at seven am around the city of Omaha, they are
going to have tree pick up.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Now.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
They say this could take up to a month, So
don't get concerned if by the end of this week
you put your branch out onto your you know the slice,
you know the what do they call that? The city
part of the of your yard, basically between the sidewalk
and the street. If you can get your branches or
whatever tree debris that you have there, they will come in.
They will pick it up starting on Thursday, but they
(43:59):
are going to be doing the entire city of Omaha,
and they say that process could take upwards of four weeks.
They do have a website. They've talked about that a
little bit earlier. You can go and find this online,
but the City of Omaha has a link to storm
damage cleanup. There will be this link, I'm sure on
the Mayor's website as well, but it has everything zoned
(44:20):
in Omaha and it kind of tells you if they're
in active tree pickup or if they have completed tree
pickup in certain spots as they're moving through each of
the neighborhoods and districts around Omaha and the surrounding area.
So you can go online, you can find this. I'm
sure this link is going to be making the round,
so be sure to check that out. But again, they
(44:41):
pick up on your street does not begin until this
Thursday at seven am. If you have additional questions about
any of this stuff, you can fire away an email.
We'll try our best to kind of sift through the
information that we've heard over the last hour or so
and let you know what we know. As we are
now day five after this massive storm, the big stoutage
in the history of OPPD, the biggest damage of you
(45:05):
sites in infrastructure with a natural disaster essentially, if you
will in Omaha in many, many years, and trying our
best to give you as much information as we possibly can,
even nearly a week after the storm itself occur. More
is on the way, so stick around right here on
news radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
Eh Marie Sung on news Radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 7 (45:30):
We're going to go.
Speaker 8 (45:30):
After those first and then three ash all the way
back down to the individual one or two customers who
might be out for the same incident.
Speaker 7 (45:37):
So those are the only two ways that we do prioritize.
Speaker 8 (45:41):
When you look at our map, is it is very
obvious when you see where the outages happened. The outages
happen in the older neighborhoods of the city where we
have very large trees, where our distribution lines are, overhead
distribution lines where is told you know, sixty years ago,
That's where you see a lot more of the outages.
It's natural based on the system design. Another question I
(46:02):
get asked is are you underground those polls?
Speaker 7 (46:06):
We are.
Speaker 8 (46:06):
We are looking at that. We continue to look at this.
This is something that we do all the time. Where
does it make sense for us to go in and
underground distribution lines.
Speaker 7 (46:16):
It's not as easy as it as it may may look.
Speaker 8 (46:19):
Sometimes we would have to go back into people people's backyards,
tear down trees, upward trees to make way for undergrounding utilities.
But we are doing that. We are really exploring how
do we continue to strengthen the system by undergrounding lines.
Acknowledging that is probably not very feasible for us to
think that we will be able to underground the entire
(46:41):
distribution system that we have from the River world the
way up to ninety six Street, which is where most
of our above ground system is.
Speaker 7 (46:49):
So I answer, more than what you ask me to do, No,
that's not and I think it would.
Speaker 6 (46:53):
It would cost a tremendous amount of dollars to take
all those above ground lines and to bury them.
Speaker 8 (46:59):
It would, And thank you for bringing that up, because
it's it's important for us.
Speaker 7 (47:02):
We're trying to.
Speaker 8 (47:03):
We have to manage, we have to balance reliability with
affordability and sustainability in cases like these, In terms like these,
really it's about people's lives, right, and so we really
can't put a price on that.
Speaker 7 (47:15):
But it's important for us to make sure that it's
not just about money.
Speaker 8 (47:18):
It's about how feasible would it be for us to
underground lines? And it's it's it's a balancing act and
it's something that we continue to look at all the time.
Speaker 7 (47:26):
Or customers, thank you, thank And you know what mister is, let.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
You talk about did the storm push that conversation further?
Speaker 7 (47:34):
No?
Speaker 8 (47:35):
No, So let's start without it We've had that conversation
for years. I'm mentioning these now because it's some people's minds,
but it's something that we power, quality, reliability, resilience, our measures.
We have metrics that we measure constantly. It's this is
not a new topic. The storm didn't make us think
(47:55):
about undergrounding lines.
Speaker 7 (48:00):
It was a historic storm. But we've been thinking about.
Speaker 8 (48:02):
Underground lines, and we do underground lines from time to time.
Speaker 7 (48:06):
Here, Covier and I are going to answer this together.
Speaker 6 (48:08):
I got to bring up some question I keep on
getting and a lot of people have said, well, the
city owns Omaha public Power.
Speaker 7 (48:17):
I mean absolutely false. We do not.
Speaker 6 (48:21):
It's a public power company. They have their own elected board.
They said, well, the city budgets and subsidizes OPPD, and false,
that's false.
Speaker 7 (48:30):
It's paid for their rate payers pay for it.
Speaker 6 (48:32):
Another thing that I have heard numerous times is that
OPPD and the City of Omaha was offered money to
bury all of their power.
Speaker 7 (48:41):
Lines, but we refused it, and that is false. That's
another false one.
Speaker 6 (48:45):
The misinformation out there is great right now, but no,
that is not true at all. The city doesn't receive
money and neither did OPPD. To bury those lines, and
so that's just a rumor that's out there too.
Speaker 7 (48:58):
So they are their own price of public Power company.
Speaker 6 (49:01):
They have their own elected board, they have their own CEO,
and I'm not that person. So yeah, yes, we do
work together and we appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Yes, okay, so we'll go ahead and dip back out
of this is the conversations continuing. This press conference has
been going on roughly for an hour, and we're just
kind of dipping in as we are learning as much
as we can about the situation and why there's still
twenty two thousand or so customers or meters of OPPD
power that has yet to be restored, and that has
been explained by Hovey or Fernandez, who is the CEO.
(49:35):
You were just hearing him speak right there with Mayor
Jean Stothard, and they tried to quell some of the perspectives.
I did have an emailer who said, you know, they
think that it would make sense to put the power
lines underground, but as you could hear there that even
though they have thought about that, or they have you know,
kicked that idea around in the past, that just the
feasibility of it does not seem to be existent at
(49:56):
this point right now across the city of Omaha, and
most of the outages that remain are from the older neighborhoods.
Is it takes just a little bit more time not
just to repair, but also how many trees might have
been in the way, how much legitimate damage to the
power polls and the power lines themselves, how difficult those
transformers are to get back up and running at different times.
That is some of the stuff that you have to
(50:18):
consistently be thinking about when it comes to the power.
But they do say that they expect at least half
of those twenty two thousand meters to be restored by
the end of today, an additional six thousand of those
remaining to be restored by at the latest on Wednesday,
and we'll be keeping you posted as more of those.
You know, more of that information is passed along as
(50:38):
a truly historic storm last Wednesday, and we're still feeling
the effects of it here in the Omaha area, with
many people on a ninety nine degree day still without
power in their homes and or businesses. Three twenty nine,
We'll have plenty more for you coming up, so stick around.
Emory Songer with you News Radio eleven ten KFAB and.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
Rais Songer on news Radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Here we are five days later.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
We're still not quite sure what the timeline is for
the twenty two thousand or so people still without power
and some of the older neighborhoods around Omaha, although the
oppd jabber Fernandez did say that he expects roughly twelve
thousand of those to be restored by the end of today.
Fingers crossed, but obviously not really helping a lot of
people right now who are without power in the middle
(51:24):
of his ninety nine degree heat. Our phone lines are open.
We'd love to take your calls. Haven't talked to you
a couple of weeks. Emory Songer here with you aftery're
missing all last week. Four two, five, five, eight, eleven
ten is the phone number, and Doug's on the line. Doug,
welcome to the show today. Thanks for calling in. What's
on your mind?
Speaker 5 (51:39):
Yeay, hey, thanks figguring my call. Yeah, you know, I
live in like how like central western Omaha, and you know,
our power is like we spotty, but we have many
many buried lines. And then to hear the mayor state
that it's very expensive to bury lines east of ninety
six streets when she is promoting a streetcar at the
(52:04):
cost of four hundred million dollars is crazy, Like why
not make it tiff and bury those lines and then
like that's more important than a streetcar. But I mean, like,
I hope she gets solved. I hope she's comfortable in
Saint Louis. Thank you and.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
Thanks Doug, appreciate the call. Yeah, I look, that's a
reasonable reaction, to be completely fair. Now, I think the
argument can be made that a streetcar and the possible
grants and money that goes to that is you know,
with politics, there are certainly different things that would potentially
(52:43):
have to occur that are different than say, what this
project would be of trying to bury power lines. To
hear oppd's CEO Hobber Fernandez agree, even though they are
not they don't work together, they are teammates in these regards.
OPPD operates completely independently of the government. For them to
(53:03):
also have that kind of perspective on it makes me
feel like there might be a little bit more to
it than just not wanting to spend the money. It's
the feasibility of what it would take to make that happen.
If you, you know, keep in mind, you know, if
you look at the power lines that are in your neighborhood,
assuming that they're still there after last Wednesday, you can
(53:26):
see kind of how they come over houses, or they
you know, come over trees or around trees, or how
that all operates. And you have to keep in mind. Okay,
so what would it take to actually get underneath the
ground and put that there and still have it be
plausibly serviced if there is an outage for some reason
(53:48):
or something goes wrong. I don't know how much work
that would take, but for both the city and for
OPPD both to say that that's just not something that
seems feasible.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
We have talked about it in the past.
Speaker 1 (53:58):
It's not something that we're really thinking about doing, even
after this gigantic storm that happened and put over two
hundred and twenty thousand people out of power. I tend
to let them. I tend to believe what they say
about that sort of thing. Now Here, here's the website
that I'm seeing with the updates on the pickup for
(54:20):
your tree branches in the stuff that you want picked up.
I want to kind of go back through this, so
it's not like everybody seems ready. If you're listening to
us and you're part of the KFAB family, especially with
us here in the afternoons, I want you to be
as well informed as possible about how to clean up
your stuff because guess what, I have a giant branch
in my backyard. I have no idea I'm going to
(54:41):
carry that thing out to the curb. But if you
want to take if you have like a pickup truck,
you got a vehicle that you're comfortable, you know, you know,
chopping up some of the of the wood that you
have if you need to, and then throw it in
the back of your vehicle and drive it to a
site and drop it off. You can do that as
quickly as today. By that drop off is going to
(55:02):
continue until next Wednesday, at the end of next Wednesday,
and then they will reevaluate. That's August the fourteenth. They're
open basically at the five sites for pickup from seven
am to seven pm. The five sites you can use
for pickup are the two that Mayor Stouthers said were
the most accessible right now, because there's plenty of room
(55:23):
for your debris is Alvay's Park, which is north of
Perrison Street on sixtieth and then Levi Carter Park which
is on Carter Lakeshore Drive, northern side of Omaha. Levi
Carter Park and Alvey's Park. Those are two parks that
she said have plenty of capacity to handle anything that
you want to drop off from today through next Wednesday
(55:46):
seven am to seven pm. The other three sites little
less capacity but still are operational. That is a football
field at F Street in one hundred and fifty sixth
Now do you know where that is? It is just
a full they say's football field. I don't know if
that's like a specific school or a specific location. It's
just been listed as a football field at F Street,
(56:07):
one hundred and fifty sixth. I don't know, but I
imagine if you go to F Street at one hundred
and fifty six you'll see a football field and tho its,
you know, generally look pretty similar. It's a field that
looks like you play football on it, sure, sure football
or soccer? Oh wow, you know they call it football
in some places.
Speaker 7 (56:23):
Now.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
Anyway, you're probably going to see the crews that are
going to be out there and help you unload that
for the drop off between seven am and seven pm.
Heflinger Park, we all know where that is. West parking
lot only is the best spot for that. And then
Greenbrier Park, which is the south parking lot at Greenbrier Park.
Those are the drop off sites. If you have the
ability to chop up whatever you have or can get
(56:44):
whatever you have into a vehicle and want to drop
it off, go ahead and fire away and go to
one of those five sites between now and next Wednesday
if you are waiting for pickup. They were planning on
picking things up today, they made an adjustment a few
hours ago before this press conference that they were not
going to do that until this coming Thursday, so everybody
(57:05):
who wanted to have stuff picked up had time to
get it to the curb. You're going to want to
put your debris between the sidewalk and the street. If
you have like one of those little strips of grass
that is kind of city controlled. If you will, you
have to mow it, but it's not necessarily your yard.
It's between the sidewalk and the street. Load that area
up the best that you can with your debris in
(57:25):
between next this sorry, this coming Thursday, until whenever they've
picked up the last one in the city. It could
take weeks, like up to four weeks. They said they
would anticipate this happening, but from this Thursday on, if
you have that debris sitting in that strip, the city
will have people with chainsaws, people with heavy trucks and
(57:46):
machinery that are able to come and pick that up.
So you don't have to worry about it. It just
may be an iceore for a while, because you got
to keep in mind they're doing that for quite literally
every person who needs it in the city of Omaha.
There is a website page I should say it says
Storm Damage Cleanup. It's a portal dcgis dot org. Now
(58:07):
I don't know if that's the best way to get
into it, but all the news outlets, and that includes
Mayor Stothart. Let me just double check her Facebook page
because she said that she's going to have plenty of
updates on her page. Let's just click on this and
there are some links. There are some cooling station updates
(58:30):
that have been posted within the last few days. And
if you go to most news outlet websites, there's going
to be a link that takes you directly to this map.
This map is not going to really matter until Thursday
when they start cleaning up, but it will show you
what neighborhoods or what districts they are going to be
targeting for current pickup, active pickup, and then you can
(58:51):
see if that's actually happening within your neighborhood or somewhere nearby,
and that'll give you an idea of Okay, we've got
to make sure everything is out there on the curb.
Now we have no idea where they're going to start
and which ones they're planning on starting with. So by
this coming Thursday, you would like to have it be
best just in case they want to start in your neighborhood,
have your debris out there ready to go by seven
(59:11):
am on Thursday. That way you don't miss your pickup.
But we'll keep you posting the best that we can
on this as time rolls on. It's certainly going to be. Uh.
It's unprecedented what's happening, and the city's doing the best
that they can along with oppd and cocks and all
that stuff to make something happen.
Speaker 2 (59:29):
You look at me, funny.
Speaker 1 (59:30):
Well, I got a couple of notes from listeners. One
Mike says that you can know that that you know
you're at the right football field there at f one
hundred and fifty six because it's the only football field
around there that's full of trees. That's a good point.
That's good at prees, I assume, yeah, yeah, yeah. And
then another listener, Dave just called in and said, the
little space in between your yard and the street. He said,
(59:52):
that's called the boulevard. Is that right, the boulevard of
broken tree limbs? I added that last part, yeah, because
that's not the name of this dude. It's a good song. Yeah,
Green Day, Uh three forty eight. We'll wrap up this
hour because we've really only talked about this, and rightly so,
because it's five days after this storm and we still
have twenty two thousand people without power or twenty two
(01:00:14):
thousand families or businesses without power. More accurately, if you've
got thoughts to something, you're seeing something you want to say,
call us four h two five five eight eleven ten
four h two five five eight eleven ten News Radio
eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
And Marie's Sung on news Radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Matt, let me know if this is simple enough, and
let me know if you can follow my directions and
get to where you need to go. Okay, so remember
they're coming and they're going to start tree pick up
on your street. If you put your debris on the
city strip between the sidewalk in front of your place
and the street, you just have it on that strip there,
and they are going to be starting to pick that
up in various neighborhoods this Thursday at seven am. This
(01:00:56):
cleanup will go on every weekday until they have it
all around town. It could take upwards of four weeks,
so you're gonna have to be a little bit patient
with it. But here's how you find that map. It's
not accurate yet because they want to make sure everybody
has time to get their stuff out, but you can
see what neighborhoods they're in and how they're operating. This
is what you do. Cityfomaha dot org. Cityofomaha dot org.
(01:01:19):
City of Omaha dot org. Right in the front page,
the homepage, there's a green thing that says Storm Damage Cleanup.
It's just right there. It says click here Storm Damage Cleanup.
You click there. Okay, it shows you the five sites
that we've talked about over and over again that you
can drop stuff off until next Wednesday. But also it
says for a detailed map of storm damage cleanup, click here.
It's a link you click on that. There's the map.
(01:01:42):
Nice there it is. You can zoom in, you can
zoom out. You can see exactly your spot, your neighborhood,
and if they're in your neighborhood, or if they're planning
to be in your neighborhood soon, or if they're in
a nearby neighborhood, you can kind of monitor that over
the next several weeks as they're cleaning up stuff off
of your property so you don't have to pick it
up take it somewhere else. The only problem is they
may not be getting to you until you know, a
(01:02:03):
couple three four weeks in because remember, they have limited resources.
It's not like they have one big truck and machine
for every single block in town. They can't just knock
it all out in one go. They're going to need
a little bit of time to be able to do
this and take all of what they have from different
places around town.
Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
So something to keep in mind.
Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
Now, that was easy enough, right, Yeah, as far as
the power do you have the OPPD up right now?
Speaker 8 (01:02:31):
I do.
Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
Are you looking for a power outage? Yeah, go ahead
and give us the latest that you're seeing right now.
And now I'm seeing eighteen eight hundred and ninety one.
So we've got a few thousand knockdowns from the time
we started the show, about eighteen hundred of those from
SARPI and just under seventeen thousand of those from Douglas.
Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
So this is a scenario which at the very least,
it's important to note that the infrastructure that was taken out,
like the poles, the wires, the transformers, that has also
delayed restoration in some of these older neighborhoods. When a
lot of these big, older trees may have gotten either
(01:03:10):
in the way or have just taken out these poles
and snapped them in half completely, that is slowing some
of this restoration down. There isn't a specific priority on
exactly what spots they have, but they did make it
very clear in this press conference that lasted basically an
hour long. Basically Javier Fernandez, who's the OPPD CEO, said
(01:03:32):
we have five times as many people working on the
ground in Omaha right now to restore as much power
as we possibly can, as quickly as possible then we
usually have on a typical day, five times the amount
of people, roughly fifteen hundred people here. He said, there's
going to be a number of people that will be
also working overnight, even though that's somewhat dangerous work, it's
something that he finds to be important in prioritization so
(01:03:55):
people can get their power back. Today's the hottest of
the days that you're going to have this week. It
is important, I think, to note that they have apologized,
they understand, and they're doing the best they can to
get things back up and running as fast as possible.
They've never had an outage anywhere close to this massive,
over two hundred and twenty thousand meters out in this
(01:04:15):
area after Wednesday storm. It's the by far and away,
the largest outage they've ever had OPPD So.
Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
It sucks, but patience is a virtue, and hopefully as
many people as possible by the end of today and
even into tomorrow can have that power restore. And again
we're going to keep you posted on all of that
and the happenings of that as we push and forge
ahead in the aftermath of last Wednesday storms together and
if you have anything that you'd like to say about
(01:04:46):
what you've seen or what you've heard. Four h two
five five eight eleven ten is our number. I'd love
to chat with you. Four oh two five five eight
eleven ten. As we head into the four o'clock hour,
we're gonna shift gears a little bit as well, talk
a bit about my week last week, but also about
some of the things in the new we need to
catch up on on news radio eleven t in kfa
B