Thursday storm brings power outage

By Alan Carman
The Imperial Republican
    Thursday, Oct. 16, at about 5:00, the skies opened up over Imperial with a deluge of rain. Looking out the front window of the newspaper office, it was hard to see the other side of main street.
    The storm also brought a lot of thunder and lightning. One of those lightning strikes was being held responsible for the town losing electricity for about a half hour, from about 5-5:30.
    Public works director Pat Davison said they thought lightning had hit a line just south of town causing the breaker to open and the town feed to be interrupted until the city crews could traverse the muddy roads to the south power station to reset the breaker.
    In a matter of a couple hours, Imperial received a little over an inch and a half of rain, flooding the streets and filling the run-off ponds.
    Saturday, Oct. 18 brought the winds to dry out the moisture, blowing steady all day with gusts approaching 40 miles an hour.