East Texas News - Polk County Publishing Company: 'via Blog this'

Students showed a variety of reactions to first day of school for Livingston ISD Tuesday.

LISD enrolled 40 new students Monday and 15 students Tuesday at primary campuses alone.

SHECO restores power to 7,300 of 10,000 locations

by Polk County Enterprise on Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 12:00pm

LIVINGSTON — The thunderstorm that blew through Polk County just after 5 p.m. Wednesday knocked out power to 10,000 people served by Sam Houston Electric Co-Op, according to spokesman Keith Stapleton. The high wind and lightning also prompted eight calls to the Livingston Fire Department in a two-hour period.

Among the first of those series of calls was caused by downed power lines on Old Bold Springs Road behind Livingston Junior High.

Stapleton said a tree broke off about 15 feet above the ground and fell across two power lines.

"Sparks from those live wires hit the dry grass and started the fire," Stapleton said.

Firefighters established a perimeter around the site in the pouring rain until SHECO crews were able to turn off the power.

It took technicians about two hours to repair damage at that site, then firefighters used a brush truck to knock down flames that continued to burn after the rain.

LVFD was also called for a downed power line on Abbey St. in Livingston which threatened a nearby house.

They also responded to a woods fire on Marston Road; 4044 Hwy. 59 North; a false alarm at the Center For Sight; a woods fire off Jack Nettles Road before returning to the Old Bold Springs Road fire.

Corrigan VFD also responded to a house fire as the storm began.

Livingston firefighters were en route to assist, but were diverted to the Marston fire and Onalaska VFD assisted Corrigan.

SHECO crews worked through the night restoring power throughout the system from Huntington to the Liberty County area.

As of 6 a.m. technicians had reduced the number of outages to 6,500. By 10:30 a.m. they were down to 91 outages affectging 1,300 people, Stapleton said.

Rainfall totals varied from a half-inch to one report of 1.5 inches, according to Emergency Management Coordinator Larry Shine.

"Since temperatures will be back over 100 degrees, that is not going to bring significant relief to our drought conditions. The burn ban will remain in effect," Shine said.