Thousands still without power in Corridor

Thousands of people are still without power after Monday's storms.

As of 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Alliant Energy reported that 5,824 customers were still in the dark in the Cedar Rapids area, which includes Hiawatha, Marion, Robins and Anamosa. This is down significantly from a peak of more than 50,000.

Another 100 customers in North Liberty were still without power, said Heather Holmes, a spokeswoman for the utility. Holmes said the company hopes to have all power restored by sometime Thursday.

'It is a little bit slow going, but we have crews working around the clock,” she said. 'We're bringing in people from throughout the whole state.”

Holmes said customers who have been without power for more than 24 hours or have down power lines should call again to report power outages at 1-800-ALLIANT. She added that if there is damage to service line, customers should call a local electrician.

At 4:30 Tuesday afternoon, Linn County Rural Electric Cooperative had 1,200 members without power, according to its website. Officials were not available to comment, but the website said about 5,000 members had power restored overnight.

Crews from Pella Cooperative Electric, Access Energy in Mount Pleasant, Southern Iowa Electric Cooperative in Bloomfield and Chariton Valley Electric Cooperative in Albia are helping with restoration efforts.

'The remaining work is removing trees, which is time consuming and generally prevents larger numbers of services to be restored at one time,” the cooperative said on its website.

The cooperative said it hopes to have all members restored by Wednesday evening.

Maquoketa Valley Electric Cooperative said on Tuesday afternoon that it had restored all but 25 members' power in Anamosa, down from peak of more than 5,000 customers. It expected to have all power restored by Tuesday night.

The cooperative said uprooted trees and building debris were tossed into power lines, which resulted in 15 broken poles from Jones County thru Jackson and Dubuque counties.

MidAmerican Energy had restored all customers' power in Iowa City on Tuesday afternoon.

Officials from both Mediacom Cable and ImOn Communications said the companies are waiting for commercial power to be restored before they are able to assess if other damages occurred.