NPPD warns against downed power lines while monitoring Tuesday's storm conditions

COLUMBUS - Nebraska Public Power District is warning Nebraskans about downed power lines as winter storms pass through the state.

According the NPPD Media Specialist Grant Otten, the company hasn't dealt with any widespread outages, but says they aren't ruling that possibility out on Tuesday due to high winds and icy conditions.

"Whether it's a lot of ice building up on the power line, a power line can break, a tree branch can get a lot of ice or snow on it and fall through a power line and can knock out power to a group of customers," Otten explained. "Or you get the wind picking up and galloping lines become an issue where the power lines are swinging, and they hit each other, and that can cause an outage as well."

Otten also wants residents to be aware that if power outages occur, the weather conditions could impact NPPD's response times.

"When we have storms like this, there was some icing last night, we have a lot of rain and that freezes up even after some of those plows get through and clear the roads out," Otten added. "Those areas that have a lot of snow, and then we're going to see some blowing wind today. That can make travel harder. If we do see any outages today it could take those crews a little bit longer to get out to some of those areas to make repairs."

Much of northern and eastern Nebraska remains in a winter storm warning or winter weather advisory until 6 PM central Tuesday night.

NPPD serves all or parts of 84 of Nebraska's 93 counties.