Left in the dark|Outage is blamed on aging equipment
Published 11:24 pm Friday, October 16, 2009
By By GREG KATSKI
Community Edito
A power outage Wednesday night left some Washington Electric Utilities customers in the vicinity of Bridge and West Seventh streets without power for almost two hours.
The outage occurred after a switch and lightning arrester attached to a utility pole at the intersection of the two streets failed at approximately 10 p.m., according to City Manager James C. Smith. When the switch failed, it burned a power line and caused the circuit at the intersection to go out, said Washington Electric Utilities Director Keith Hardt.
Until the power line was repaired, the circuit remained down, Hardt said. With the circuit down, businesses along U.S. Highway 17 from Pamlico Plaza to Second Street and residents in the neighborhood surrounding Bridge and West Seventh streets were left without power.
Smith blamed the outage on what he called old and deteriorated electrical components which should have been replaced. He said the switch and lightning arrester were probably hit by lightning at some point and hadnt totally failed.
Weve (the city) been delaying capital improvements and maintenance to keep the cost (of electric utilities) down, and were just beginning to see a few consequences of that, he said. It was pretty much a freak thing that you know is going to happen but you cant predict.
Prem Malkani, general manager of the Holiday Inn Express on Carolina Avenue, said he and his guests were surprised by the outage, which left the hotel without power until just after 11:30 p.m.
The guests were upset, he said. They werent expecting, in a town like this, to get that kind of service.
Malkani said that three guests checked out of the hotel after the almost-two hour long outage and asked for a full refund, and many more said they were never coming back to Washington.
During the outage, the hotel tried to comfort guests by providing them with light torches and keeping them informed about when the power would be restored. But Malkani said relaying information about the outage was difficult.
Malkani said he constantly called the citys power outages/utilities emergencies 24-hour response line for information, but to no avail.
Half the time we couldnt get through. The other half of the time they didnt have any answers, he said. All they said is Were trying to find the problem. Then they hung up.
Malkani said he and his staff did the best they could to keep their guests safe and satisfied.
We were pretty much not informed the way we should have been informed, he said.
While businesses were affected by the outage, Mick Reed, Washingtons police chief, said there werent any problems on the roads although traffic lights at the busy intersections of Fifth Street and U.S. 17 and Third Street and U.S. 17, among others, were out.
Im not aware of any problems related to the outage, he said.
Police Lt. William Chrismon said officers were sent out to intersections with affected traffic lights to monitor the traffic.