By DAVID CLOUSTON

Salina Journal

Utility crews were working throughout Wednesday night and through the day Thursday to restore electrical power to customers left in darkness by the powerful storms that raked the area.

Meanwhile, Saline County Emergency Management officials submitted a disaster declaration to the state Adjutant General's Office, the first step in becoming eligible for federal disaster relief.

"I really don't think we'll have enough dollar damage to qualify for FEMA Assistance. I hope I'm wrong, but I've got a feeling it's not enough," said Saline County Emergency Management Director Bryan Armstrong, after touring storm damage in the county Thursday morning.

Nevertheless, about 400 customers in Westar Energy's Salina division remained without electricity late Thursday afternoon. The goal was to have most back on line overnight, said Tom Sydow, Westar representative.

Between Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon, the utility was able to restore electricity to 9,300 customers, he said. He did not know how many customers lost power due to the storm.

Utility crews from Emporia, Hutchinson, Shawnee, Arkansas City, Newton, Wichita, Lawrence and Topeka were working in the Salina area Thursday. Altogether, there were about 300 utility service people working, Sydow said.

The most serious problem with electrical power remained downed electrical transmission lines, which the storms took out south and east of Salina, Sydow said. Officials were able to work around the problem with backup power supplies.

"Just like a highway system, we lost several lines going into the Salina area. We don't like any of them out," he said. He didn't expect repairs on the transmission lines to be completed until possibly Saturday.

Solomon-based DS&O Rural Electric Cooperative Association serves about 7,500 customers in nine counties, including Dickinson, Saline and Ottawa. The association was working to restore power to 200 to 250 customers by the end of the day Thursday, said spokesman Derrick Rutherford.

The entire city of Solomon lost power during the storms, Rutherford said. Altogether, about 1,600 DS&O customers were without power at some point due to the storms, he said.

In Saline County, at least six homes were destroyed and five others sustained major damage in the storms, Armstrong said. The homes most severely damaged were in the 3100 block of South Holmes Road, between Magnolia and Water Well roads. Four homes lost walls and roofs, he said.

Armstrong said at least 50 other homes received minor damage.

Two businesses in south Salina also received significant damage. A pole barn storage shed at Dauer Implement, South Highway 81, was hit, and Crestwood lost three-quarters of the roof of its cabinet factory at 601 E. Water Well.

The storm knocked over semitrailers and caused slight roof damage at the Philips Lighting plant, 3861 S. Ninth. It also knocked semitrailers on their sides at Penske Truck Leasing, west of Crestwood, at 575 E. Water Well, and at Doug Bradley Trucking, 680 E. Water Well.

Armstrong said the bulk of the storm started northeast of Smolan, in the area of Halstead and Farrelly roads. It proceeded along South Holmes Road, then appeared to angle up to the Crawford Street, Country Club, Kipp Road and Niles Road areas, and out of the county.

"It almost went straight from Halstead and Farrelly roads, up to Solomon Road and Stimmel Road. If you drew a straight line and made it bow a little bit in the middle, that's about the line that it took," he said.

Armstrong said the Adjutant General's office will likely send damage assessment teams to all counties affected by the storm, to do a closer study to see if an application for federal disaster relief is warranted.

"For individual assistance, a rule of thumb is if we had 25 homes with at least 40 percent uninsured loss," Armstrong said "I don't think we're going to get close to that (in Saline County)."

"We won't see anything from the state damage assessment until likely next week," he said.