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N.D. (NewsDakota.com) The ice storm on Christmas Day knocked out power for some 895 customers.

Dakota Valley Electric Cooperative spokesperson Pat Schaffer said crews in the field estimate that more than 150 poles have been broken, with more than 50 down in the Forbes area alone.   

He said the townships most affected are Adrian, Corwin, Ypsilanti, Beresina, Black Loam, Bluebird, Gladstone, Glen, Haag, Gutschmidt, Janke, Kennison, Lautt, Lenton, Lorraine, Manns, Mickleson, Montpelier,Nathan, Ranney, Severn, Sharlow, Spring Valley, Swede, and Sydney.     

Dakota Valley currently has 45 linemen working to repair broken poles and torn lines. In additional to all of Dakota Valley’s line crews, these workers are from neighboring rural electric cooperatives and line construction contractors. More crews will be arriving, we estimate that electricity in the most severely damaged areas may not be restored until the end of the week.

Reporting outages is best done through a phone call – using the cooperative’s regular phone numbers. After hours these calls are directed to our dispatch center. Please have your telephone number, or if you have more than one account, your meter number ready.

Dakota Valley apologizes for the long wait times some consumers experienced during those calls to the dispatch center, which at the height of the storm was receiving more than 1,000 calls per hour.

If you are able to go on our website, www.dakotavalley.com, you can follow the progress of power restoration by clicking on the “Live Outage Map” icon located in the lower right hand corner of the page. You will find a list of townships with outages and the number of outages in each township.

Officials with Dakota Valley Electric Cooperative have notified the North Dakota Attorney General’s office that someone is calling cooperative members claiming to be Derek Williams from the collection department. This is a scam. DO NOT SHARE ANY PRIVATE FINANCIAL INFORMATION with this caller and hang up immediately.

Meanwhile some 1,300 Cass County Electric Customers had their power knocked out from the ice storm and high wind during the recent blizzard in North Dakota.

Here are a few photos of knocked down power lines in Barnes County submitted to NewsDakota.com