Gary Don Nietsche, General Manager at Fayette Electric Cooperative, reported that crews and contractor crews responded to outages from the storms that moved through the Cooperative’s service territory Tuesday evening. Rain, lightning and high winds primarily impacted members in Fayette, Colorado and Lavaca counties. Damage from a tornado observed near Swiss Alp between Schulenburg and La Grange on Highway 77 snapped two power poles just north of FM 956 and Hwy 77.  Another pole snapped near Berger Road between Hwy 77 and Ammannsville as a result of the tornado. 
     
Straight line winds and excessive lightning were the main causes of the outages that caused trees, and limbs to be blown onto the lines resulting in downed power lines and power outages.  “We were fortunate that only three poles were downed as a result of the tornado” said Nietsche. 

Members in the Swiss Alp, Ammannsville, Hostyn, Schulenburg, Flatonia, Freyburg to Muldoon, Flatonia, Praha, Komensky, Oakland, Hackberry, Osage and Cozy Corner areas were affected by the damaging weather system. 

Five FEC crews, and four contractor crews responded to the outages and worked to restore power to the estimated 800 members affected by the outages.