Lightning strikes cause havoc

By RALPH BARTHOLDT

Staff Writer

Lightning strikes on June 21 hit several city water and communication towers wreaking havoc on the city’s drinking water distribution system, although service to customers was not interrupted.

A lightning storm that rumbled low across the Rathdrum Prairie, tapping its long, electric fingers on several city water and communication towers knocked out computers and caused tanks to overflow.

After making repairs for more than a week, workers at the city of Coeur d’Alene have fixed most of the damage caused by direct lightning strikes at a cost of around $60,000, city administrator Troy Tymesen said.

The city is waiting to receive and install one new $12,000 water pump at a holding tank on the eastern edge of town.

“It occurred during our busiest season, and now we’re trying to get the equipment back up and running,” Tymesen said.

In the peak summer months, the city pumps around 35 million gallons of water every day to residential users.

The storm that darkened the sky and blew in that Thursday evening struck the communication devices in city water towers — one near Atlas Road and another south of Prairie Avenue — and lightning from the storm struck a water tank at Best Hill and a communication tower at the water department’s Ramsey Road headquarters.

Strikes aren’t uncommon, said Kyle Marine, assistant water superintendant, and the towers and tanks are protected by lightning arrestors.

“This is the first time we got hit by multiple strikes that caused this much chaos,” Marine said.

The bursts blew out electrical systems used to send data between towers and pumps, and knocked out the main system where data is collected and displayed.

The data tells pumps when to turn on, or shut off, based on usage, and it allows city workers to track the flow of water to and from pumps, tanks and towers.

The information is tracked at headquarters, but the storm left workers in the dark.

“It was basically just a blank page,” Marine said.

Heavy rain, hail and gusting winds accompanied the thunderstorms in the evening prompting the National Weather Service to issue a flood watch, but lightning was a bigger concern for the city’s water department.

“It created a multitude of problems,” Marine said.

For the past week, workers incrementally, with the help of consultants in some cases, repaired the system to 90 percent, but pump replacement could take several more weeks. In the meantime a back-up pump at a tank on Potlatch Hill above The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course is standing in until a new pump is installed.

As city workers combed through the system last week, checking tanks and pumps, manually turning them on and off on 24-hour watches, water users in some areas experienced low pressure, but for the most part, the frenzy to keep things working wasn’t felt by residents.

“Right now we have enough capacity to run everything,” Marine said.