An inspection of the damage was performed on Wednesday confirming a lightning strike. Results of the inspection show the damage does not appear to be extensive.

"There was a cold front that came through two weeks ago," said Kurt Bookout, public utilities director. "During the night we had the wind switch from 35 to 45 out of the south to 50 to 60 out of the north in the middle of the night." As the wind turbine was turning into the wind the blade tips deployed and flaired out as a braking mechanism. That caused one of the tips to break.

Five turbines were also destroyed at a nearby wind farm that's still under construction. The preliminary rating of the tornado northwest of Harper is an EF-3. Officials say that tornado damaged a farmstead four miles west of Harper. The maximum width of the tornado was 200 yards.

All lanes of US-56 highway from the K-31 junction in Osage County to the K-99 junction in Lyon County will be closed between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Thursday and Friday so crews can remove from a ditch an overturned semi-trailer that was hauling a wind turbine tower.

Three wind turbines that power the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system at Cloud County Community College's Concordia campus are casting shadows that are too long.

“Itinerant pilots unfamiliar with the tower array will be at greatest risk, in marginal VFR visibilities. Those pilots may be entering the array before they visually detect it. The entire outer boundary of the array will not be visible from any given point during marginal VFR conditions because the proposed tower array covers approximately 16 square miles within the 8-mile radius,” according to the letter.

All of them were later found to have damaged blade tips. Siemens alleges this occurred when they hit a rail overpass at Kansas Avenue and First Street in Kansas City, Kan. Siemens is seeking $3.2 million.

Two firefighters from Lincoln County were injured while fighting the blaze. ...there was no damage reported to wind turbines at the Smoky Hill Wind Farm. The cause of the fire has not been determined.

Sen. Jay Emler, a Lindsborg Republican and chairman of the security panel, said he wanted the briefing to make legislators mindful of the potential conflicts as the state pushes for more wind development with existing military operations. "There are consequences to all of our actions," Emler said.

Some Kansas legislators are asking whether the development of wind farms could affect training at military bases. The Legislature's Joint Committee on Kansas Security has placed the topic on its agenda for a meeting Nov. 22.

Sunflower Wind's suit claims Arlwin manufactured blades for three tublines, two of which were installed in Lane County and the third in Smith County. On Nov. 4, the suit alleges, Sunflower Wind removed the blades from one turbine in Lane County and learned the blades were "severely cracked."

A 320-foot crane used to construct turbines at the under-construction Smoky Hills Wind Farm fell Wednesday morning while it was being moved from one site to another, said Glenn Melski, vice president and manager of operations for Enel North America, one of the companies that's managing the project. ...The 56-turbine, first phase of the wind farm, which is about five miles northwest of Ellsworth, had been scheduled for completion in December. Melski said he didn't know how much the crane incident would affect the project's schedule.

Doug Ewert also spoke with emotion. Ewert is owner of ETek Group Inc., and expressed concern at the concept of placing tall structures so close to residential homes. "I'm a company owner, I build communication towers," Ewert said in a voice thick with emotion. "I know what these things are about. I know that they're dangerous." Last winter's ice storm ripped down several communication towers in northwest Kansas, and left Ewert picking up debris from communication equipment scattered 2 miles away, he said. "In not one location that I've ever put a (400-foot-tall) tower would I put a tower next to a residential community," Ewert said. "It's amazing that this is even being evaluated for that area because of the community that's there. That community should be protected by Ellis County.

MONTEZUMA - Wind-powered energy farms can get too much of a good thing.

Rose Bacon, member of the Governor's Energy Task Force and a rancher who owns property in the Flint Hills, spoke about the vulnerability of communities facing proposals from international companies that want to build commercial wind farms in rural areas. She pointed to the lack of “teeth” in regulations, and the attractive tax write-offs granted to wind energy companies, and the inexperience of local officials in dealing with such monstrous deals, depicting a state-wide scenario akin to the “wildcatter days in the oil business.”