Nebraska
And now for a little 'mood voting' on Election Day in central Omaha • Nebraska Examiner
OMAHA — A power outage in central Omaha on Tuesday morning offered some Nebraska voters a “romantic” setting of sorts as they cast their ballot on Election Day.
At least two polling places were without light and power for less than two hours. Omaha Public Power District officials said power was restored around 10:30 a.m.
One seemed to have sufficient natural lighting, but the other, a Lutheran church at about 60th and Center Streets, had voting booths in the basement and needed a bit of intervention from the Douglas County Election Commissioner’s Office.
Brian Kruse, county election commissioner, said his office sent a runner to the location with several lanterns that helped light pathways to voting booths.
People were using flashlights on their cell phones. The facility also had some flashlights.
“That’s a first for me,” Kruse said of the incident.
OPPD said fewer than 1,000 customers were without power after a private construction crew hit an underground power line near 48th and Leavenworth Streets. No one on the crew was injured.
The area affected was between Dodge and Center Streets, from 60th to 48th Streets, plus University Drive North and Pacific Street from University Drive West to 46th Avenue.
Nebraska Examiner’s Aaron Sanderford was among the voters that marked their ballot in the dark during the power outage.
“Me and some of my neighbors got to vote like it was the 1800s,” he said.
One voter called the lighting “romantic.” Another called it “mood voting.”
Meanwhile, Tuesday marked the first election that, under a new state law, workers checked identification of voters. Kruse said all seemed to be going smoothly on that front so far, with no voter complaints as of midday.
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The future of data centers in Nebraska took center stage at a North Omaha town hall Thursday evening.
The event was hosted by State Sens. Terrell McKinney and Ashlei Spivey, who alongside Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh sponsored a bill in the Nebraska Legislature that looked to help regulate data centers.
Parts of their bill were adopted and passed in LB1010, which requires reports on annual power usage, water usage and ownership.
“Having this passed in a package showed a lot of bipartisan work,” Spivey told a crowd of attendees at Nelson Mandela Elementary School.
The proposed regulations were shaped in part by Bold Nebraska, an advocacy group focused on eminent domain and clean energy. Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and founder of Bold Nebraska, said before the bill passed there were “zero laws on the books” to address a boom in data centers.
“If one is coming into the community, we wanted to make sure that there were some basic transparency things in place,” Kleeb said.
Political discussions around data centers heated up in recent months following reporting by the Flatwater Free Press that showed Google is considering a data center in Nebraska that could require more than three times the amount of power the entire city of Lincoln uses at peak demand in the summer.
The Nebraska Legislature recently passed another bill, LB1261, that allows private developers to build and own power plants to serve a large industrial customer, including data centers. That bill was proposed by the governor’s office and celebrated by Gov. Jim Pillen.
“Our state is once again taking a bold and strategic step – one that will create an environment that attracts business and multibillion dollar investment, while legally preserving Nebraska’s unique and consumer-friendly public power model,” Pillen said at the time.
At Thursday’s town hall, McKinney called LB1261 “the bogeyman bill.”
“It’s a bill that the governor pushed through the legislature to allow for data centers to create their own power,” McKinney said. “It’s a bill that I stood on the floor and said this is going to harm our communities.”
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Hundreds of people are without power in southeast Nebraska after a severe storm passed through Thursday morning.
The Lincoln Electric System outage map showed 115 customers without power across the city at 11:36 a.m.
Norris Public Power District’s outage map also shows 45 customers affected by the storm. As of 11:36 a.m., there were nine active outages.
According to the Nebraska Public Power District outage map, 657 customers were affected by the storm. Most of the affected customers were near Plattsmouth in southeast Nebraska. As of 11:37 a.m., 27 customers remain without power.
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Mandatory evacuations have been ordered near Crawford, including Fort Robinson State Park, as the South Fork Fire continues to spread in western Nebraska.
According to the City of Crawford, evacuations are currently underway for an area north of Crawford that includes the area south of Dodd Road, west of Dodd Road, and FF Street.
Fort Robinson has also been evacuated.
The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission said Fort Robinson State Park and Peterson Wildlife Management Area have been temporarily closed due to the fire.
The fire has burned approximately 9,000 acres and is currently 0% contained, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Nebraska Game and Parks said the park and the WMA will remain closed until further notice to support firefighting operations and protect public safety.
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