Power outage briefly darkens city on March 20

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by Ellin Walsh

Reporter

Cuyahoga Falls -- Spring's arrival in the city March 20 was upstaged by a more unanticipated event.

Electric Department Superintendent Bob Bye said power went out at 10:05 a.m. March 20, affecting four substations in the city and possibly as many as 6,000 to 7,000 people.

"It was quite a large area," according to the superintendent. While the electric department was notified of the outage by its SCADA [Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition] system, which monitors data from various sensors, Bye says employees were also alerted a more old-fashioned way: The electric department's headquarters were affected as well.

Electric department employees determined a crew from a utility company splicing some phone lines in the area unintentionally cut or shorted some of the city's leased lines, Bye said.

Breakers opened to protect the system with a boomlike sound, Bye said, and some residents reported they heard "an explosion" at the substation near State Road at Sackett Avenue.

Power was restored to the majority of the affected residents at 10:21 a.m. The last substation went back online at 10:49 a.m., according to Bye.

Thankfully, Bye said, the outage occurred during a work day, when he had a lot of "excellent employees available" to isolate and correct the problem.

E-mail: ewalsh@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-686-3908