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Baldwin City Electrical Department began replacing an older line of power poles along High Street this spring, moving lines from old poles to new ones. This project was undertaken to increase reliability on this line, moving power lines higher and to more stable poles. This is a fairly complex process that involves setting new poles and then moving lines to the new poles with specialized supplies and equipment.
The new poles were set in 2025, and the specific parts they needed to finish the project did not arrive until late in the spring of 2026. The line crew has been in the process of moving wire over to the new poles for the last couple of months as time allows. They were hoping to be finished with the project by July of 2026, but supply chain delays and other necessary work has pushed the timeline for project completion back to fall of 2026.
In the last couple of weeks, the crew has been aware of some blinks on the southeast feed specifically but were not able to pinpoint the problem. The southeast feed covers the largest square mile portion of town of any of the feeds, including the Heritage neighborhood. You can see a Google Map of the feed areas here. Blinks are typically due to tree limb interference, and on Thursday, July 2nd, the crew found and removed some branches that were brushing the lines, which fixed some of the blinks.
On Saturday, July 4th, the crew received a call regarding blinks on Ames Street and found that a cross-arm brace placed to support the wire transfer to the new line had broken, allowing the lines to bump up against a transformer with wind gusts. This caused a repeated power drop on the entire feed as well. Given the high wind events we’ve had the last couple of weeks, this is another cause of the electricity dropping repeatedly. This issue was repaired as soon as it was discovered on Saturday, and once the wires are transferred permanently to the new power poles, reliability should be significantly increased to the entire feed.
The town’s second substation is projected to be online within the next 6 months as well, which would allow crews to re-route power temporarily in case of a situation like this in the future. The second substation will increase overall reliability in many circumstances, which is why City Council invested in the project in 2023. More information about the second substation project is available on the Electric Substation 2 project page.
