“We don’t have answers for a lot of people. We’ll know more as each day goes by but just be ready for a number of days being out of power. Stay warm anyway you can. Be careful with generators. Don’t run them inside,” said Tom Rafferty, Community Relations manager at Verendrye. “If you have questions about safety, please call us. And any downed power lines, assume that they’re energized, no matter what. Don’t get near them. Report them to us.”

As of 4 p.m., Verendrye still had about 300 poles and 25 miles of utility line on the ground. Five contractors were working Monday to help set new poles. Verendrye reported more than 50 linemen, including 28 employed by Verendrye, were working toward the goal of having power fully restored by early next week.

Southern Ward County has been hardest hit but also affected have been areas around Berthold, Des Lacs, Lone Tree, Donnybrook and Carpio, Rafferty said.

Many rural residents have hooked up generators to ride out the power outage with some degree of comfort.

Jill Schramm/MDN A Verendrye Electric Cooperative utility pole south of Minot is among hundreds broken in the weekend storm.

Ron Fritel of Des Lacs, who has been waiting for power to return, said the worst part of the ice storm is seeing damaged trees that won’t be so easy to restore.

“That’s really sad to look at,” he said. “I see some huge evergreens that have to be close to 100 years old that are broken in half. That’s tough to look at. Just about every tree is broken.”

Fritel expects cleanup will be a major project but he also laments the damage that’s occurred in light of the work that went into the establishing the trees.

“Even my apple trees look like they are broken off so we have to start over again,” he said.

Darren Groninger, Douglas, continued to be without power since Saturday afternoon, with just a small generator to run items with lower electrical usage. His farm also was without water until Monday afternoon.

Submitted Photo A Berthold-area farmer uses his tractor to pull a Verendrye truck through the snow to access power lines Monday in this photo from John Fjeldahl.

He said the loss of electricity affected the well pumps used for watering livestock. His backup water for livestock and the water serving his home comes from North Prairie Rural Water District, which was experiencing water delivery issues due to lack of electricity to its pumps. Until North Prairie could restore water, he used a gas engine to pump water to a tank on the back of a truck to haul to his livestock. He said it creates an appreciation for the luxury of running water, especially when coming in from calving and working with livestock and having no good way to clean up.

Rafferty said Verendrye crews and contractors are working first in areas where restoring power will bring the most customers back on line, he said. More isolated areas where lines serve fewer people will take longer.

Rafferty said it can take considerable time to remove broken poles, haul new poles to locations where needed and eventually erect the poles, string the wire and restore power. He explained the work is made more challenging by the deep snow. In some cases, farmers have been assisting with their equipment to pull trucks into areas that are difficult to navigate because of snow or mud.

“As long as the weather is not dangerous, they will work until dark. They’re going to be putting in some long days,” Rafferty said. “Our linemen do a heck of a job for us, as well as our people in the office, taking all the information down, finding out where the problems are and some of the safety issues.”