Think the ice storm damage was bad....look what Empire District Electric chose to destroy in the name of "clean up". During the recent ice storm, Empire District Electric trimming crews arbitrarily chose to clear cut our back yard oasis. At 11:00 pm on February 12, 2008 we were thrilled to see and hear Empire Electric's effort to clear the power line right-of-way to restore power. Our support soon turned to horror as we watched the crew chose to leave the 15 foot boundary of the utility right-of-way and clear trees almost 40 feet out of the right-of-way boundary. 30 year old trees were clear cut not more than 15 from our back porch where our granddaughters play and we feed thousands of birds, a flock of 45 turkey and a small herd of deer. Tall trees, short trees, 15 foot tall cedars which provide protection for the birds in the winter were all toppled with no respect for our private property. My wife an I pleaded with the crews to "stay on the right-of-way. After our pleadings were ignored and a chain saw was taken to trees just feet off or our porch, my wife stepped inside and called the Christian County Sheriff's Department. She then stepped back outside and told the crew she had "called the sheriff's department". " I have my 22 rifle so please leave our property". This did the trick. The crews left only to be replaced by several sheriff's deputys and a really nice Highway Patrolman. Rather than enforce our proprty rights...my wife was arrested for displaying a weapon, "I was told Empire has the right to cut the trees because this is a national disaster" declared the deputy apparently in charge. He became less than friendly when told that he must have misunderstood his instructions as this was a "natural disaster and not a national disaster and Empire does not have the right". My wife was soon in handcuffs and taken to jail for a 24 hour hold. Our attorney, Cynthia Black, had a difficult time even speaking with my wife at the jail. We still have not heard whether or not she will be charged. As my wife and I are both in-home counselors with abused children, I personally do not feel we are a threat to anyone, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what the prosecutor decides. We already know the Sheriff's Department feels protecting the community from a gun wielding grandmother of four is more importantant than protecting taxpayer's property. Empire came back after my wife's incarceration and finished trimming the powerlines (funny though, from that point on the trees were all trimmed appropriately and not clear cut. Apparenly my wife should have asked them to leave before they reached our back yard). Later explanations included " they were cut because they were in the fall zone if the ice toppled them". Sounds professional...but...several of the trees were not tall enough to hit the lines if the ice did fell them. Several others were cut and allowed to fall towards the powerlines by the cutting crew (apparently not a very good or accurate crew). These trees did not touch the powerlines either and fell in piles onto the ground. To make matter worst the Empire representative (Scott Mackey) stated :"the PSC does not allow us to clean up this mess because we cannot be reimbursed for the expense". Of course, the PSC does not reimburse us to cleanup years of our family's enjoyment which was destroyed intentionally by Empire District Electric. Shame on them...they raise our rates for every other reason: they protect their profits by not trimming their rights-of-way when there is not an emergency situation because if they wait for the emergent situation to arise then they don't have to pay for the cleanup either ... works well for their bottom line: they aribrarily destroyed a beautiful piece of property: most importantly, they can do all of this destruction on private property with no recourse for the landowner. Something is seriously wrong in this system. At least mother nature makes everthing appear beautiful when she destroyed my property... not Empire District Electric.
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