Businesses feel different effects from rain

Businesses and utility companies had opposite situations during the stormy weather on Tuesday and each felt the effects in different ways.

Roosevelt County Electric employees were busy repairing power lines and bringing power back to homes during the stormy weather on Tuesday night.

“They (workers) had to deal with a lot of lightning, wind and rain,” Roosevelt County Electric County line superintendent Apolonio Santillanes said. “There were several power outages they had to respond to.”

Santillanes said they had to repair damage from the first storm which blew by on Tuesday morning and finished with their repairs at 3:30 p.m. He said they had to head out at 8:30 p.m. again after the second storm came through Roosevelt County. He said they were finished with repairs from damage from the second storm by 1 a.m. on Wednesday.

Santillanes said power line repairmen take a risk each time they climb up poles to fix the damage.

“They take a risk of being hit by lightning when they make their repairs,” Santillanes said. “Lightning can travel many miles through the powerlines. I would say 70 percent of the lightning hits powerlines. It’s tough to be out working with the lightning hitting around you. You try to fix the power outages as fast as possible.”

Santillanes said wind blew over a pole and broke it, 15 miles west of Floyd on a county road. He said the pole did not hurt anybody or damage any property.

Meanwhile movie rental employees experienced an uneventful night during the storm.

“It was real slow after 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday,” Lawrence Williams, Movie Gallery employee, said. “There weren’t any customers coming out during the bad weather.”

Williams said some bad weather does convince people to rent a movie and stay in, instead of being outside. Williams said the busiest time for Movie Gallery is during holidays, particularly Christmas.

Dora school officials canceled classes for Wednesday because of the flooding.