The completion of the new western loop around Pahrump Valley and a new power line to Jackass Flats will provide a backup supply to prevent another blackout such as occurred Jan. 13, Valley Electric Association CEO Tom Husted said at the monthly VEA board meeting Wednesday.

The daylong blackout, the theft of copper wire and other recent events were the subject of questions by a handful of members.

But while the new power loop will help, it won't help very soon.

Extending the 138-kilovolt line from the Charleston Park substation around the western Pahrump Valley to the existing Vista substation near the north end of Leslie Street won't be completed until 2008 or 2009, according to Robby Hamlin, VEA manager of operations and engineering.

Another project to hook up the 230-kilovolt line from the Vista substation across Mount Sterling to the Nevada Power grid at Jackass Flats isn't projected to be completed until the middle of 2008, he said.

Pahrump, Sandy Valley and Mountain Springs were without power for over 12 hours Jan. 13 when a vandal shot out the 230-kilovolt line between Goodsprings and Sandy Valley. Valley Electric used power exclusively off the 138-kilovolt line but it wasn't enough to feed the heavy demand on the coldest day of the year.

"Had that (new line) been in place, we wouldn't be having this conversation," Husted told the board. "But unfortunately, government being what government is, and all the different entities, the hoops you have to go through and deal with, these things take years to accomplish. We're still in the middle of that. The construction is the easy part. But it's getting to that point."

He added, "You wouldn't see a break in the line. It would have automatically switched."

Hamblin said afterwards that the cooperative has plenty of capacity for all the development plans. Power demand peaks at about 120 to 125 megawatts out of a capacity of 300 megawatts on the 230-kilovolt line from Lake Mead.

"We started planning this new transmission line almost 10 years ago. Now we finally got to the point where it's under construction. That is to meet our needs today and our future needs.

"So we have a plan in place to meet all of the growth that's coming on," Husted told VEA member Dorothy Ragsdale.

Husted said the old 138-kilovolt line was put to the test while the 230-kilovolt line was out of service. Rolling blackouts were instituted to try to keep homes warm.

"The load throughout the community varies and some areas are easier to get on than others. And then what made it more difficult was, as it got later in the day and the temperatures got colder, well, then the demands were even higher, and so in some areas we weren't able to do the rolling blackouts," Husted said.

"In fact, at some point during the event we couldn't do them at all, and that was just because at the time, to get certain sections on was impossible because the demands were too high," he said.

The power blackout was like the perfect storm, the way Husted described it. "I called it the worst of the worst of the worst -- the worst thing that could have happened at the worst possible time in the worst location."

The cooperative had to build a road to the power line break, he said. The crews drove over rock getting to the remote location and broke an air line for the brakes. Mechanics had to be dispatched to fix the truck.

"They're building this transmission line along Thousandaire that will tie into our system. So we had a temporary system now that tied in. If we didn't have that temporary situation, that would've allowed us a little more flexibility in how we managed our rolling blackouts," Husted said.

VEA member Susie Gray said her power went out on Hafen Ranch Road after everyone else, about 6:20 a.m. that day.

"So I called them (VEA) and spoke with a lady on the phone and she said, 'Yes, we've cut your power off and we're going to be having rolling blackouts. We're going to be giving other people power,'" Gray said.

But Gray couldn't understand why both her land-line telephones went dead.

Hamlin said SBC Nevada Bell should have had backup power for land lines. He added, "the cell phones, the different towers, they didn't have any backup or didn't have sufficient backup."

Gray said, "We were just lucky. I told my husband, 'Thank God we didn't have to call 911.' I mean, we're toast."

Calvin Morrison, who lives in the Jocelyn Estates area near Thousandaire Boulevard, said he had a battery-powered radio. Morrison said he called Valley Electric, but all the lines were busy. When Morrison finally got through, the phone kept ringing and ringing.

Husted said Valley Electric ordinarily uses two centers in Minnesota and Tennessee to answer calls on weekends.

"It gets back to the worst of the worst of the worst. We had our outage and the next 24 hours in the United States, they had major ice storms and outages across the United States, and because they were also handling some of those calls for those utilities, they were inundated," Husted said.

Instead Valley Electric operators handled their own calls.

Hamlin said Valley Electric wasn't able to detect damage to the line after the vandal shot it until the blackout when the line snapped.

"We had significant load on that line. We wouldn't have been able to detect it. It's not like fiber optic line," he said.

But when the line went down, he said Valley Electric was able to pinpoint the outage within 500 feet on an 85-mile power line.

VEA member Ed Fox inquired about the theft of copper from the substation at the Sandy Valley turnoff on Highway 160.

"Metal prices have gone up and what has happened is utilities, new homes that are under construction, have been targeted by thieves to steal the wire," Husted said. "It's pretty common knowledge we have a pretty extensive grounding grid in our facilities and copper wire is down in the wiring.

"We are re-evaluating the security measures across our entire company. We have a company that is assisting us with that, and we will be taking added security measures across our system," he said.

VEA Marketing Manager Staci Behnke laid out plaques of appreciation to people and businesses who helped out during the power blackout, including Pahrump Town Manager Dave Richards, who opened the Bob Ruud Community Center; Nye County Emergency Services Director Brent Jones; Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo; KNYE-FM owner Art Bell, who tried to keep people informed; businesses like Albertson's Supermarket, Smith's Food and Drug and McDonald's Restaurant for providing food; The Saddle West Hotel and Casino for providing a hospitality suite; and the two Pahrump television stations, Channel 30/62 and 41.

Husted also got a word of encouragement from Ragsdale at the monthly meeting.

"I've been here 18 years. We used to have blackouts fairly often. So you must be doing something right."