Bill McKim and Cole Snyder, Midland Power Cooperative, March 19, 2026

Our guest on our program today come to us from Midland Power Cooperative and we've got CEO Bill McKim here. Bill, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having us. We're glad to hear. And also joining us, Lineman Cole Snyder. Thanks for having me.

So we came to talk about a couple of different things and one of the big ones is Cole, I think you were part of a team that spent some time down south in the wintertime sounds like, well, this is where we want to go. Yeah, it was pretty nice down there.

80 degrees and then t-shirts most of the time compared to 20 degrees up here. Okay, but not necessarily 80 degrees and I was just hanging out down there. No, it was a lot of walking through mud and putting mine back up.

Tell us a little bit about first the storm that happened because people have seen it and we see, you know, we'll see pictures on TV, things like that around here. But what really, what were you guys dealing with down there?

So I think it was winter storm fern is what it was called and the co-op we went to, it took out I think 10,000 customers and they had over 2,000 poles on the ground. Wow. So it was a lot of roll around and you're just like, oh, there is nothing left.

It's all folded over on the ground and a gigantic mess. I would just add a stay like Mississippi where this hit and where the guys went down, you know, a winter storm with snow and ice and everything. That's just not something they're normally prepared for.

So for the guys to be able to go down there and help out, like Cole said, it was pretty extensive damage, but also just the people there, you know, that type of storm is not something normally Mississippi thinks about.

Yeah, so Bill, one of the things, and again co-op, this is a mutual aid. Everybody hears about mutual aid for the fire departments and things like that, but co-ops across the country, you do have it set up for you to be able to go and help each other.

And that's just a great thing. So one of the seven cooperative principles is actually cooperation among cooperatives and electric cooperative movement came out of the 30s and 40s and we've maintained that collaborative spirit.

So when you have 30, 35 co-ops here in Iowa, but across the country, close to 900 electric co-ops.

And so when we have a storm situation like this, one of the things is to reach out through our national association and they coordinate our ability to send crews like from Iowa down to Mississippi to help.

So if you have a storm, you can say, hey, this is bigger than we can take on ourselves. We need help. We need aid. And they reach out through both our national and then they contact our state organization.

They communicate back and forth and we're able to send crews and help each other out. And it just goes back to that principle of cooperation among cooperatives and helping each other out. So cool. When you get ready, okay, call comes in. How does it work on our end?

How do we find people to go? Do you have to plan your schedule? How does that work? Say, I just kind of got called out of the blue one Friday afternoon and said, you want to go to Mississippi on storm? Sure. Sounds good. When we leave tomorrow morning. Cool.

So it was just, hurry up and try to pack as much things that you can remember and plan your things out that you need to remember while you're gone. So, and is it a group of you that go and do you take your, you take trucks along and what all do you take with you?

So yeah, it was about five of us that all went. We took a buck or yeah, a bucket truck, a digger truck, and then a four-inch truck to kind of lead the way and troll around so they can move around a little easier. So it was just a combination of vehicles.

One of the challenges, I would guess, when they're going down there to do this, supplies need to be there to be able to start to, if you got broken poles, things like that, laying on the ground, you're not going to stick those back in the ground.

You got to do, you have to have new. And that really works depending on it's kind of a situational decision. So for that co-op, they were able to secure the necessary materials for the guys to have on hand.

We have had situations where they've said, hey, when you come down, we need these trucks. If you have these type of trucks, please bring those. And then if you can bring like a couple trailers full of poles, or whatever, we would need these types of poles.

So it kind of goes both ways. It's a situational call by the co-op that's been impacted. And we were fortunate for these guys because it made driving down those trucks isn't like heading down in your SUV. So to not have to pull a load of poles with you is a nice thing.

So but it does kind of go both ways. And again, it depends what each one has. So down there, their system obviously, is it built to handle things like heavy ice storms, things like that?

Are there different things that you do here for system, you know, when you're putting in the lines and things like that, compared to what they do down there? Or is it common? Say, I don't think any systems built for the amount of ice they got.

Because we asked them, and I think that it was like, said it was over an inch of ice. Oh, well, that'll do it. Yeah, that's pretty heavy. Once you got that on the line, and then add when they start jumping and bouncing, things are going to break.

Yeah, but the old galloping effect. Yeah, they do. And so yeah, anything like that does happen. So what do you do? Do they find a place where you say I mean, obviously, a lot of people don't have power. So do you have to commute back and forth? How do you get in there?

And what do you do? So we stayed in some fishing cabins about 30 minutes from their main show upside. And they were pretty nice.

We had electricity and warm water in our cabin, which I know a couple others weren't so fortunate, their water was frozen, because they only bear their water lines like eight inches deep. Yeah, okay. So it was pretty nice where we were staying.

And then yeah, just a 30 minute drive to their main headquarters, which is where we got all our material and poles. And how many? So how many? How long were you guys down there? We were down there for just a little over two weeks. That's a lengthy commitment. It is.

So we appreciate, you know, people like Cole and the other guys, because their families make a sacrifice with these guys being gone too. So we really appreciate their commitment to the cooperative principles and be willing to help out.

And, you know, I think the people in Mississippi were very, very thankful for the guys coming down. So when you get down there, again, you go and start, how do they set it up? You mentioned all the damage they had. It was pretty extensive for that cooperative.

So do you just work around the clock? Is it around the clock and they have different crews? Because obviously you weren't the only team that came down or showed up? No. So we worked for about 15 to 16 hours a day. It was kind of wake up rolling at six, six 30 in the morning.

And from there you kind of just go and it's a mad dash to get material with all the different crews. I think it had 250 linemen down there. So as you can imagine, it's pretty chaotic trying to wrangle up material, get poles while other people are trying to get poles.

And even fuel, it just took a minute to try to get around everybody. Got to organize everything. Logistics got to be a real challenge. So and that the co-op that you went to help, I mean, when someone comes in to help you like this, do you have people out there?

Your own crews obviously would be out helping. And but you also do a lot of the logistics for everybody that's coming in. Yep.

So they had lineman bird dog in us, which is where someone goes out and kind of patrols the line and tells us where we need to go because we don't know their system. And then they had the office ladies come out and bring us food. And so it was all hands on deck for them.

And it took a while to get it all back up. All that. That's a lot of damage. I was going to say, I just hats off to your exactly right. Logistics on that.

So you think a system, maybe they've got 25 or 30 linemen on a normal basis and to bring in, as Cole said, 200 additional linemen. And so hats off to them. That's a big thing. You got to get a material. You got to get fuel food. So where are these guys going to eat breakfast?

What are they going to do for lunch? What are they going to do for dinner that night? You asked a great question. Where are we going to put everybody to sleep? So those are those are huge things. It's a huge logistics thing.

And I think the cool thing about I think rural Americans, I think the people in Mississippi were pretty understanding. They understood this was a big process and took a lot to go through. And we've got that awesome Iowa nice.

And so appreciate when our members are patient, like we had the Dray Show and some other storms like that. There's a lot of things to go through. So to Cole's point to your question, yeah, the logistics are huge.

And I think in debrief and our crews, we always like to learn what they learn down there and ways that we can add into something and not, you know, happens to us, hopefully not, but be prepared because the logistics are huge. It's a big, big thing. That's okay.

Like I said before we started, I remembered like 36 years ago when we had that big ice storm and on the 7th of March, and I remember the power line or the high line along 169 what was 17 miles worth, I think of the poles went down.

And that was just those that didn't count all the things that Midland lost. And I remember visiting with some of the board members and things like that about how your crews were out there were and you had other crews come to help.

The cooperation, the mutual aid has always been one of those big factors. And when someone gets needs help, people show. It's awesome. We can, in our situation here at Iowa, we call our statewide association and we say, Hey, we need, we need crews.

We could use, we estimate we need those people. And they start, first they'll start calling around Iowa to see who can come. And then it kind of goes out from there. They'll make a call, for example, to Missouri or Illinois or whatever, and say, can you send some crews?

And as Cole pointed out, those guys are on the road, probably within 12 hours, they've packed a suitcase and jumped in a truck and they're on the road. And we were very, very fortunate to have that, that cooperative spirit inside the cooperative family.

You don't happen to check the forecast before you leave to see what's going to happen here while you're gone. Management does. Management does.

Yeah, it's kind of a consideration like, ah, is this going to be nice and sunny or is it going to be super cold and going somewhere nicer? Well, we'll, we'll do what we can. Got to throw out a quick question since springtime coming up.

And obviously we could be looking at more ice storms or more storms and things like that around here. But we're also getting into that time of the year when people are, especially producers are getting ready to go out into some of the fields and stuff.

Always look up, see what's above you. Yep. That's a far, just safety in general. We work very hard at our safety culture. I'm proud of, of our team here. We're, we're right around three quarter of a million hours without a lost time accident.

So, uh, you never were supposed to not say that out loud.

So hopefully we stick with that, but also just general safety, you know, for anybody driving or our agricultural friends get out in the fields, do like, as you said, look up, be careful of poles, be cognizant of those things.

Um, because we, we, we have, we think electricity is a great, a great product and a great thing for our society. We all benefit from like a cold refrigerator and the air conditioning and the heat to run. Um, but we need to be safe around it. So we would encourage that.

And I know, uh, again, usual things for you guys, when you come back, you got your regular routine work that you have to keep doing too.

So once you're down there and do that, it's, it's got to feel pretty good to come back and say, you know, at least we help get them all back up. All their people have power and, uh, you know, we, it was, it had to be pretty devastating, just everything.

Cause I'm guessing just power lines don't go down. You got trees and everything else. So, so yeah, so we were pretty fortunate there. We were working and we didn't have to deal with the trees too much.

So they had tree crews going through and cutting the trees out before we got there, which makes our lives way easier. Again, all that logistics part, right? Yep.

So you don't have to try to drag lines out of trees or try to fight the trees to put poles back in, which makes it way easier. So, and that wasn't the only place that got hip, but it was one that, uh, really put out a call for some help.

And you had a lot of people down there to help out. Yep. We're glad to help. Feel good about that. We do. Part of being one of the coolest thing about the job is being part of the co-op family. So being able to help out in those situations is, is awesome.

And I always prefer to be able to send crews versus asking for crews. So just, you know, ice is a big scare of ours. So we, we have, we hope we don't have any of that. So, all right. We do that. And stay safe.

Well, we've had a few, we've had the doray chose, we've had, uh, you guys have had enough different things that you need to work through.

And a lot of times if you can get a lot of it done yourself, but there are just times when little, little added help, little extra hand is really beneficial. So we can keep, keep things going, keep the power on for everybody too. Once again, Midland, the sizable service area.

Again, when people think we talk about just like right around here immediately, uh, we've got the office and boot, but Midland covers a, a sizable part of the state. We do. We're in 17 counties, uh, over 4,000 miles of line. So we go pretty much from, from Algona to Polk city.

And you think over by Scranton and Green County over to, uh, Iowa falls and Steamboat Barak and Hardin County. So it's a big area. We have four service center coals out of our Boone service center. Um, and so it's, it's a big territory and a lot of miles of line.

Don't let anything happen. Avoid that ice at all costs. Ice is not my friend. No, no, I would agree. Not in the wind, not with mother nature's ice. So again, I do appreciate you taking time to come in and talk a little bit about this, but ready to go again.

If something happens down there. Oh yeah. I'm always ready to go. He's a great worker. He's a hard worker. Yep. He is a very hard worker. And otherwise everything else for a middle and moving along pretty good right now. It's going well.

We encourage our members to watch for our appreciation events coming up in June. So appreciate that. But yeah, we're looking forward to good, good summer construction season and, uh, with our new to replace old and building a new services.

Cole's crew keeps busy doing that, but yeah, things are going well. Thank you. And we've got a lot of, uh, a lot of different construction things going on around, not just here, but throughout your area. So there's plenty of, plenty of work to keep you going.

So I do appreciate you taking time to come and visit with us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Once again, today, visiting with Bill McKim, who's CEO of Midland Power, Midland Power Cooperative and Alignment Cole Snyder. Thanks so much.