3.1. SR 10-17-2005 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Council Minutes October 3, 2005 Page 3 Chief West noted that the Fire Department received about a dozen calls that evening relating to lightning strikes, fIre alarms due to power outages, and for one structure fIre in Lafayette Woods. B. Utility Issues Elk River Municipal Utilities General Manager Bryan Adams indicated that his offtce began getting calls about 6:30 p.m. the evening of September 21, 2005 regarding power outages and with all of the line crews working, the power was restored by 2 a.m. He eXplained that a majority of the power outages were caused by trees on power lines and that the reason that Elk River didn't experience more power outages is because about 60% of the electrical lines are underground. Mr. Adams stated that the day after the storm was spent cleaning up and on Friday, a line crew was sent to assist the City of Anoka restore power. Mr. Adams noted that many of the agencies in the area have mutual aid agreements amongst them for instances such as this. Councilmember Dietz questioned if a representative from Elk River Municipal Utilities was present in the EOC. Mr. Adams stated that he has discussed the issue with Chief West and there will be a representative from Utilities in the EOC in the future. He noted that the Utilities phone lines will need to be transferred to the EOC so residents can contact them in power outage situations. C. Street Clearing and Storm Debris Pickup Plan Street Superintendent Phil Hals stated that he had three crews on the streets the evening of the storm looking for trees down on city property, the boulevard, and on the roadways. He stated that the weekend following the storm was very busy at the compost site and he estimates that they saw about one vehicle per minute dropping off brush there and that the pile of brush. Mr. Hals indicated that curbside brush pickup will begin Tuesday, October 4 and go through Monday, October 17. He stated that this curbside cleanup may not take as long as originally planned and that the fInal cleanup will be completed by the 17th. Councilmember Dietz questioned if there was a way in the future to communicate to residents that the city will be picking up the brush curbside so pickup could begin earlier. Mr. Hals indicated that most residents assumed the city would be picking up the brush and that there were a couple reasons for choosing the dates that they did. One was to allow the residents a couple weekends to get the brush cleaned up and the second was to allow time for the Public Works Department to get some other important issues such as drainage issues taken care of prior to picking up the brush. D. Drainage Issues City Engineer Terry Maurer explained that due to the recent rainfall events in the month of September, a number of drainage issues have been brought to the city's attention. Mr. Maurer stated that Street Superintendent Phil Hals, Assistant Street Superintendent Mark Thompson, and he have been responding to most of these calls from citizens regarding drainage concerns. He noted that most of the areas of concern are located in an area of the city where storm sewer systems have no outlets, which is generally east ofTH169 and north of Elk Hills Drive.