EPB explains Monday night’s power outage
Chattanooga, TN (WDEF) – About 15,000 EPB customers lost power Monday night, thanks to what spokesman John Pless called a ‘series of unfortunate events.’
He said lightning hit a power pole off 37th street sometime during the day Monday.
Pless said crews believe it smoldered for some time before the pole eventually completely burned Monday night.
That caused a 46,000 volt line to fall onto a 4,000 volt line.
And that caused a ripple effect the EPB Smart Grid tried to rectify.
Pless said, "The location of this pole was in such a remote location that we had to go down what has been called a pig trail. And once we started going down that trail we noticed that there had been some illegal dumping of material that blocked that trail so we had to wait on a crew to bring a bulldozer in to clear the way for our bucket trucks."
Pless said that thanks to Smart grid automation, power was restored to all 15,188 customers within an hour.
He said lightning hit a power pole off 37th street sometime during the day Monday.
Pless said crews believe it smoldered for some time before the pole eventually completely burned Monday night.
That caused a 46,000 volt line to fall onto a 4,000 volt line.
And that caused a ripple effect the EPB Smart Grid tried to rectify.
Pless said, "The location of this pole was in such a remote location that we had to go down what has been called a pig trail. And once we started going down that trail we noticed that there had been some illegal dumping of material that blocked that trail so we had to wait on a crew to bring a bulldozer in to clear the way for our bucket trucks."
Pless said that thanks to Smart grid automation, power was restored to all 15,188 customers within an hour.
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