Announcements
POWER OUTAGE CANCELLED (2/28/06)
Earlier in the week, Westar Energy had notified Neodesha City officials of a plan to replace a degradated utility pole north of the City this Saturday. Although many pole swap outs are accomplished “hot,” or without service interruption, the complicated situation at this particular pole necessitated that service be cut off. Currently, two of the engines at the City’s power plant are down, resulting in, the power plant temporarily not being able to cover the load of the City. However, a turbo is being repaired on one of the downed engines and, according to Neodesha Mayor Casey Lair, “is expected to be operational again in 30 – 45 days.” Westar has agreed to “band-aid” the pole until the City’s power plant can supply sufficient power to cover the load of a typical Saturday (approximately 4 – 5 Megawatts). Therefore, no outage will occur this weekend.
"TOP TEN REASONS TO LIVE IN NEODESHA" ANNOUNCED BY CITY COMMISSION
The City Commission announces the completion of an exercise to determine the “Top Ten Reasons to Live in Neodesha.” The goal of this exercise was not to have a scientific survey, but to be a fun community experience to help us define what makes Neodesha special. Many wonderful responses were provided and it was difficult to narrow those down to just ten.
10. Cost of housing is affordable and moderate
9. Charitable programs are supported generously
8. An amazingly large number of scholarships are available
7. There is a strong entrepreneurial spirit among local businesses
6. The school system is excellent
5. A warm, friendly place to live, where good people are friendly and willing to help -- Neodesha is a wonderful town to grow up in!
4. There is a strong sense of community spirit that is alive and well
3. There are lots of jobs -- over 2300 jobs for only 2900 people
2. A person can be as busy as they would like to be with the civic clubs, church gatherings, school functions, bridge clubs, etc.
1. Most folks think more of the “we” (how does it help the whole community) than the “I” (what’s in it for me).
WATER LINE BREAK (9/19/05)
Update: Water restored at approximately 11:45 am.
A large 16" water line break early in the morning on Monday, September 19 in the industrial park, caused outages in the north part of the community and forced some closings. At approximately 1:00 am, both elevated water towers (on Main Street and on Little Bear Mound) had been emptied by the leak, and City crews were called to the scene. Although the main break had been isolated by 7:00 am, there was still another leak that was continuing to drain the City's remaining water supply. At the time, the other two retained some water, but that level was continuing to drop, indicating that an undetected second leak might exist. Later it was learned that a secondary leak did not exist, but additional leakage was caused at the original site due to water flowing back through the system to the same location.
At approximately 7:30, a second 12" line feeding the northern part of the industrial park was shut off, which completely isolated the site and stopped the leak. As a result, water levels soon began to recover. As of 11:00 am, clamps placed on the broken line were holding and some water was beginning to be fed back through the damaged line. Officials hoped at the time, that water may be restored by 12:00 noon. No boil order was effect as City and KDHE official deemed it to not be warranted. Mayor Casey Lair said, “I’m proud of the hard work by our City employees. Many worked through the night to find and fix the problem as soon as possible.” Water service was resumed at 11:45 am. As a result of the water outage, Cobalt closed and sent workers home before 7:00 am. At approximately 7:00 am, the school district (USD 461) cancelled classes but planned to go ahead and continue with Monday night activities including the playing of a junior varsity football game. At approximately 8:00 am, Millennium sent workers home. Other industries continued operations.
NEODESHA HOLDS ORGANIZATION MEETING (9/12/05)
On Friday, September 9, Neodesha held an organization meeting to organize the community's Hurricane Katrina outreach efforts. The outcome of the meeting was beyond expectations as not only did the group layout the community's plans for gulf coast evacuees, but also laid groundwork for the city's emergency response efforts. An "Incident Command" structure was put into place. The City Commission is set to endorse the structure at its regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, Sept 15.
KATRINA OUTREACH LEADERSHIP MEETING TO BE HELD (9/8/05)
A leadership meeting will be held on September 9 to make plans for Neodesha's response to the outplaced workers in the Gulf Coast region. Neodesha, which has a tremendous number of jobs, is looking for more workers already. The idea the group is moving forward with is a win-win situation with Neodesha helping dislocated workers by providing employment and a source of revenue, while the dislocated workers could help fill a much-needed gap of workers. How Neodesha will respond, where displaced workers might be housed, how they might apply for jobs in Neodesha all will be topics for the meeting,
NOTICE TO EMPLOYERS (9/6/05)
In response to the need to evacuate survivors following Hurricane Katrina we are assembling a list of employment needs in the community. If your business is in need of additional employees, please eMail City Administrator J. D. Cox (jdcox@neodesha.org) with the number of needed employees and the expected wage range.
EMERGENCY WATER RATIONING PERIOD IS OVER (9/4/05)
At 7:00 PM on Monday, the City of Neodesha announced that one of the two pump systems had been repaired and was operational.
The City had been on emergency rationing since 6:00 am on Labor Day following the failure of a raw water pump control system. The City has a primary pump system and an identical backup pump system. The primary system had been knocked out during an electrical storm two weeks ago. The second pump and control system is anticipated to be repaired by Friday. With only the single operational pump, it took approximately 15 hours to restore the City’s water supply back to adequate levels, which occurred at approximately 4:00 am on Tuesday.
Neodesha’s water source is the Fall River, from which raw water is pumped and then treated at the Neodesha Water Plant before being injected into the City’s water system and elevated water towers – the main downtown water tower and the tower at Little Bear Mound.
At a little after midnight on Monday morning, the secondary pump system failed and no more raw water could be pumped from the river. Earlier in the day, at 6:00 am, the City had called for emergency water rationing that allowed for only cooking, drinking and showers. After the pump system had been repaired, the water rationing was loosened a bit allowing for clothes washing, dish washing and baths. As of 4:00 am on Tuesday, all restrictions had been lifted allowing for such things as car washing and lawn watering to resume.
There had been a rumor at one point that there was contamination in the water and that water ought to be boiled. This turned out to be a false rumor as the treatment of the water had never been an issue, but instead, only the pumping of the raw water from river.
The City is hopeful that the single pump will continue to operate, although there is still a moderate possibility of its failure. The situation is being monitored around the clock. In the event of another pump system failure, further communication and notification will be made to the public.
Mayor Casey Lair said, “Everyone was great throughout this period. The City normally uses about 10,000 gallons of water during offpeak hours such as 1:00 am to 4:00 am. The people in Neodesha conserved and with it being Labor Day, it was surprising that they were able to keep our usage down at the 10,000 gallons/hour level throughout the whole day. That says a lot about the folks in our community. The outstanding cooperation of the community is appreciated and has helped our City avoid a major problem and has shown ‘Working together works!’”