Power blip barely registers on local services

By Janet Jacobs

January 24, 2007 10:03 am

— No one had time to get out the flashlights or candles, but Corsicana did experience a brief power outage over the weekend.
“We did have a trip to where it was just out for a second or two, and came right back on,” said Willie Leos, area manager for TXU Electric Delivery.
The problem, which could have been caused by something as minor as a squirrel, tree falling or snake on the line or a car hitting the pole, occurred on the transmission line which serves almost the whole city, Leos said.
“It wasn’t a distribution problem, it was a transmission problem, which is our main line coming in,” he explained.
The blip didn’t cause serious problems, according to local officials, although some offices did report having to restart computers.
“It was just for a second,” said Sheriff Les Cotten. “It didn’t really affect us in any way.”
The jail’s generators kicked on to keep the power going, Cotten said.
Although the jail has backup generators, none of the prisoners would have been able to take advantage of the situation, even if the power had stayed out, Cotten said.
“Without electricity, they can’t open the doors,” he said. “They just have to sit in the dark.”
The power blip did not affect the hospital at all, which is on a separate power grid, but the facility has two diesel generators that automatically kick on within seven seconds of a power outage, explained Mick Zader, interim director of plant operations at Navarro Regional Hospital.
“When the power goes out here at the hospital, it’s business as usual,” he said. “They (the generators) will carry this hospital as long as we need it.”
If the outage had been something more severe, power might have been gone longer, but this time it was just blip, Leos said.
“We have protective features on our line that if it’s major, it would lock it out and be out until we fix the problem,” he said. “In this case, it was just a flash, and everything was good.”
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Janet Jacobs may be contacted via e-mail at jacobs@corsicanadailysun.com