Published: March 25, 2008 09:03 pm         

Power outage leaves 13,000 Allegheny customers in the dark

Emergency repair crews from American Electric Power worked for more than 90 minutes Tuesday fixing a badly damaged substation in Ronceverte that left 13,000 Allegheny Power customers in three counties without electricity.

The substation — also called a delivery point — is owned by Allegheny Power, but the damaged insulators inside the substation are owned by American Electric Power, according to Allegheny Power spokesman Todd Meyers.

“American Electric Power feeds our Ronceverte substation and that power comes in on a 138-kilovolt electrical line,” Meyers said. “There were some failed insulators that had to be replaced and we needed to disconnect our system from approximately 12:29 p.m. to 2:06 p.m.”

Meyers said during normal, planned repairs, their company will notify customers “months in advance,” but the seriousness of the situation called for immediate action. Meyers said more than 13,000 customers in Greenbrier, Pocahontas and Monroe counties were affected.

“This was an emergency that had to be handled quickly and this was something that we learned about from AEP Tuesday morning,” Meyers said.

Meyers said news organizations, 911 centers and municipalities were notified about 9 a.m. Tuesday that the planned power outage would be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. However, getting started took longer than expected, and electricity was not shut off until nearly 12:30 p.m.

AEP spokesman Phil Moye said large insulators at the substation were damaged after possibly being hit by lightning last Friday.

“The damaged insulators were not discovered until yesterday (Monday) when some Allegheny Power employees were in the substation and saw the damage and then notified us,” Moye said. “They told us the line was just barely being held in place by a few bolts and it was in danger of falling.”

Moye said had the insulators fallen, the repair time, and subsequent power outage, would have been significantly longer.

“As soon as you see a condition like that, it has to be corrected,” Moye said. “We were very fortunate to have been notified of this situation or there might have been a much lengthier power outage.”

No major problems arose from the power outage, but some retail stores in the region opted to lock their doors and traffic jams due to non-working stop lights were reported in congested areas like U.S. 219 in Lewisburg near Wal-Mart.

— E-mail: cgiggenbach

@register-herald.com