‘All hands on deck’: LES trying to restore power to thousands of Lincoln homes

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Home owners across the City of Lincoln lost power Wednesday night after severe storms blemished central and eastern Nebraska.

Storm damage in Lincoln brought down trees and power lines, causing more than 30,000 residents to lose power.

One Lincoln man, Dan Mcclung, said the work is harder because he can’t cool off in the air conditioning.

He and his two brothers were helping their mom clean up branches in her driveway, while also rolling up a communication line that was laying along N Street.

“Repetitive,” he said. “You make little branches out of big branches and haul them off to the side. Hopefully, someone can use them for firewood or something.”

Mcclung lives near Pius X High School where his power was restored Thursday morning.

He hopes his mom’s power will be back on by Friday night.

Lincoln Electric System said they have all hands on deck trying to restore power to thousands of homes, focusing on the areas that have the most outages first.

The supervisor of meter services at LES, Jacob Kreikemeier, said in some cases, outages can be fixed by the homeowner.

“We own the wires coming into the house, but where it detaches, that’s our demarcation,” said Kreikemeier.

Broken equipment that is owned by the customer can be repaired by an electrician, according to LES.

LES said that will help customers avoid delays in getting their power restored.

If the broken equipment is owned by LES, they will repair that equipment.