After four days, Ames Electric Services has restored power to nearly all its customers in Ames, leaving less than 12 without power. 

“The houses that do not have power are typically the houses that have damage to something electrical on their [individual] property,” said Donald Kom, director of Ames Electric Services. “There are no clusters anymore; all of the houses are scattered around Ames.”

Before Ames Electric Services can restore power, the homeowner of a house without power must contact an electrician.

“We don’t want to restore power, and there be a short circuit somewhere, and something potentially dangerous happens,” Kom said. 

Ames Electric Services are waiting by as their last remaining customers fix problems.

“From a public works perspective, we’re ready to go,” said Susan Gwiasda, public relations officer for the city of Ames. “We’re just waiting for individual houses to be fixed.”

Widespread wind damage to trees, electric lines and power poles has created challenging repair conditions and affected neighborhoods throughout the entire community.

Ames crews continue to work on repairs with assistance from line crews from Indianola and Cedar Falls.

Kom said the challenge in restoring power to the final customers involves trouble-shooting and assessing damage to poles, transformers and circuits. 

Downed trees continue to slow the work. Determining the cause of the outage can be labor intensive and includes manual checks throughout the entire system