On May 27th, 2019 the Town of Pendleton was hit by an EF2 tornado, uprooting the beautiful tree-lined streetscapes.  The historic trees uprooted sidewalks and underground utility lines as they fell into the street pavement and adjacent homes.  Heavy equipment was called in to clear the way and restore power at a record pace.  The Town is a member of the Indiana Municipal Electric Association (IMEA) where other crews are called to help deenergize fallen powerlines and restore power as quickly as possible.

Just 1 year earlier, Banning and the Indiana Municipal Power Association (IMPA) teamed up to develop a new mapping application for municipal-owned power systems.  Pendleton agreed to be the first to map their entire power grid.  A year later, the power map was ready and available for IMEA emergency crews to use.  Power was restored in just 3 days.   

Banning considers Pendleton as part of our family, and we feel privileged to provide a proposal on reconstructing Franklin street.  We were able to help clean up Pendleton after the Tornado and appreciate the opportunity to continue that effort. 

Banning Engineering teamed with IMPA to map Pendleton’s power grid.  IMPA previously used another mapping system but was frustrated with the difficulty of use and with the steps required to have a working map as a visual.  IMPA adopted the mapping software system used by Banning Engineering.  Once the data collection is complete, Banning will process the data.  Benefits have already been noted, IMPA has reported that the interface is much more user-friendly and the immediate data sync is a great improvement from the previous system.