We, the roughly 187 Mid-American Energy customers supplied via three wires that run well below a 1/4 mile of over-arching trees respectfully request an engineering review to reduce the number and duration of outages that have occurred during wind and ice events our Linton Hills, Bettendorf, Iowa area experienced over the last 15 years or so.

The latest example is the week of August 10th, 2020. While all the other homes in our development seldom see power disruptions lasting more than hours, our outages toward the section farthest from the arterial road are nearly always somewhat to days longer owing to the poles carrying the main power feeds being set in the floor of a steep gully with tall trees growing on the sides over-arching the wires.

We the undersigned residents respectfully urge our Bettendorf, Iowa aldermen and representatives from Mid American Energy to have company engineers re-assess the routing of the electrical supply to our homes to reduce the duration and frequency of outages owing to wind and ice events. Suggested remedies include a taller pole on the gully floor to keep the wires above the trees, burying the wires, or connecting to main power a few dozen feet north or south along the mains to avoid the heavily treed area. The policy these many years has been something of a race between whether nature would down branches upon the lines, or trimming crews got there before nature wins. That policy is no longer sustainable.

The troubled connection can be found connecting to the main lines just south of the intersection of Devil's Glenn Road and Devil's Glenn Court in Bettendorf, Iowa. The homes impacted by this connection are, generally speaking, the western third of the Linton Hills development. Streets include the western part of Lundy Ln, St. David St, Halcyon Dr, and related courts and connections.

Please find below a photo of the connection, showing the pole in the distance well beneath so many branches of so many trees. Many other photos show worse forestation upon the wires, but would have invaded the privacy of home owners so I didn't publish them. Of course we understand this engineering review must wait until the present crisis has passed, but do hope and expect progress to occur before the ice storm season arrives. Several days without power is enough for one year.

Bettendorf Iowa / Linton Hills residents, please consider sharing this link. If you would rather not respond in a public way, kindly mention this matter to our local elected official, alderman Bill Connors, email him at bconnors@bettendorf.org .

Thank you for your attention and support.