An underground cable was the culprit in a power outage that left places like the Mall at Piccadilly in the dark for more than an hour Saturday morning.
The power went off at 10:56 a.m. on July 27, reports Jen Walker-Larsen, community relations spokesperson for BC Hydro, and stayed off until 12:16 p.m.
At the mall, many people drove in, parked, tried the doors of their chosen store, noticed a ‘power outage’ sign, and left. When the lights came on, hopeful customers outside some stores waited for several more minutes as the tills were brought online.
Affected in total were more than 3,340 Hydro customers in an area ranging from just south of First Nations Road all the way past Yankee Flats Road.
Crews are on site at an outage affecting 3300 customers near #SalmonArm. Updates on our mobile site: https://t.co/6MSwVRBt9m pic.twitter.com/MB9yo9eCeA
— BC Hydro (@bchydro) July 27, 2019
“We have an underground cable that comes out of the substation there,” she explains, adding it failed and will need to be replaced. “It was an underground repair so it’s a little more complicated than above-ground. Wires on a pole are a bit more straightforward.”
Power for customers was then fed through another circuit off another line.
“We have redundancies in the system in most places, so typically we have another way to get power to them.”
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Although there were reports circulating that work on the highway west of town might have been responsible, Walker-Larsen emphasized the cause has not been determined.
She said there might be a brief planned outage when power is returned to the original circuit but, if so, the public will be notified.
@SalmonArmmarthawickett@saobserver.netLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
