News

Disaster declared in power cable failure
Agencies directed to assist

JULY 13, 2018, Washington Island, WI…..Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker today issued a disaster declaration requested by Washington Island Electric Cooperative, directing state agencies to assist with ongoing repair and mitigation activities arising from damage to an underwater power cable that left the roughly one thousand members of the state’s smallest electric co-op dependent on backup generation for nearly two weeks.

With the existing faulted cable temporarily repaired, we want to continue the communication regarding the installation of a replacement cable.

With the exception of some final housekeeping items, the repair portion of this project is now complete.

The first splice is complete and will be lowered to the bottom this morning (Wed).  The other end of the cable will be brought to the barge and the second splice will begin.

We wanted to give you another brief update to let you know where we are with the situation.

Fabick Cat has completed repairs on Engine #8 and both engines have been test ran and are available to carry the Island’s load.

A lot has happened since our last communication.  This one will be quite brief due to the fact that there is still a whole lot going on.  It also will not necessarily be sequential information because many of the things listed were happening at the same time or are being listed together because they are related.

As you may or may not have heard by now, on June 15, 2018 at approximately 2:22 AM we lost power from the mainland.  Power was restored to the Island with our diesel engines at 2:48 A.M. and troubleshooting the problem began.