A failed line switch at the intersection of 12th Street North and Main Street caused a widespread outage in areas of the city Friday afternoon, leaving many residents without power for more than two hours.
Angela Verdell, general manager for Columbus Light and Water, said the line switch, which controls electrical flow in different areas of the grid, experienced a mechanical failure at about 11:10 a.m. due to a broken latch on the switch.
At the height of the outage, Verdell said roughly 1,400 customers and several traffic signals were without power in areas near downtown, namely along Main Street, upper Seventh Street North and in parts of East Columbus.
Crews isolated the problem and replaced the line switch, restoring all power at about 1:30 p.m., she said.
Residents on Facebook said in many areas, power began flickering well before it went out completely, including at the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library, according to library director Erin Busbea.
“The power had been popping on and off for about 30 minutes already, so most people who were in (the library) ended up leaving because we couldn’t get computers back up before they shut back off,” she wrote in a text message to The Dispatch.
The unplanned outage forced the library to close at noon, two hours earlier than its schedule.
“We had a few handwritten transactions for checkouts, but overall it wasn’t a significant impact,” Busbea said. “Just a weird occurrence, but we know how those things are and know sometimes things like this just happen. Thankfully my staff is really good at rolling with whatever is thrown at them.”
Neither Heritage Academy nor Columbus Municipal School District facilities were affected by the outage.
Verdell said she hopes Tennessee Valley Authority can help CLW mitigate failures like Friday’s going forward, though she couldn’t say when TVA’s inspection services may be available to the city.
“We are using TVA comp services for drones to fly over circuits in the system to help identify potential line issues so that equipment can be replaced before a failure can occur,” Verdell wrote in a text message to The Dispatch on Friday. “The service has been previously requested of TVA but has not begun. We do not have a timeframe for when service will begin.”
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