Dateline: February 3, 2005

Low line shuts off electric customers

By Ashlee Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

More than 3,200 electric customers were left without power Thursday afternoon after a low hanging power line tripped out causing outages around the area.

Linda Caton, a Communications Consultant for AEP, said the failure was due to a 69-kilovolt line being down between Jericho and Clarendon.

“We’re not certain what caused the line to become low,” she said, “but a cross arm or insulator break can cause a line to go down.”

Caton said when the low hanging line shut itself off, two breakers in Clarendon and two in Hedley failed, leaving 1,830 customers in those communities without power.

The outage also affected customers of Greenbelt Electric Cooperative.

Member service advisor Randy White said Greenbelt Electric interfaces with AEP and an estimated 1,400 customers lost power.

“AEP feeds our substation outside of Clarendon,” White said. “We had customers affected in McKnight, Jericho, Hedley and Goodnight.”

The failure began at 2:14 p.m. Thursday, Caton said, and power was not fully restored until 4:30 p.m.