NPPD Hopes to Have All Power Restored Saturday

COLUMBUS - NPPD says they hope to have all of the power restored to their customers by the end of the day on Saturday. A combination of rain Friday evening, mixed with cold temperatures and heavy winds on Saturday, has left many communities with out power. Nebraska Public Power's Mark Becker says this Spring blizzard has been a tough one for power companies to battle with. "Last night when we started, we we're going to get everybody back on with there power. But we made a management decision last night that the roads were unsafe, it was bad conditions for our crews to be out, and we pulled all of our crews back in last night. We brought them back in this morning and started to work," says Becker. Becker says they have been able to get power back on in some communities such as Lexington and Aurora, but says other areas like Atkinson, O'Neill,  and Ogallala are still in the process of being restored. "Our biggest problem is Butte, Bristow, and Lynch.The problem we have there is the access to getting in there. Snow is so heavy, and roads are treacherous in those areas, were going to do our best to get them back on," says Becker. Bristow has since had it's power restored, but it could take sometime for other communities to get reconnected. Becker says if conditions don't change, they hope to have  all power restored by the end of the day, but says it's possible more outages could occur. "There's always that possibility. The wind hasn't died down. There is a lot of snow in that particular area, so we're dealing with it minute by minute I guess you could say," says Becker. Stay tuned to News Channel Nebraska on TV or via the web to stay up to date on the latest power outages and blizzard news. Mark Becker spoke with News Channel Nebraska just after 12:15 p.m. on Saturday. Please check the latest stories for updates on outages around the state.