Afternoon power failure hits 8,900 in midtown area

MICHAEL GRAHAM Citizen Staff Writer June 6, 2001

The failure of a 46,000-volt power line interrupted power for 8,900 Tucson Electric Power Co. customers yesterday afternoon. Residents, retail businesses and restaurants were without power for about 45 minutes, starting at 3:34 p.m., just as the mercury reached 96 degrees.

Traffic signals were out and police directed traffic at major intersections. The outage was bounded generally by East 22nd Street on the south, East Fort Lowell Road on the north, Alvernon Way pm the east and Campbell Avenue on the west.

John Brown, spokesman for TEP, said the failure occurred at the junction of an underground and overhead power line, and was centered at the Country Club substation. When the breaker tripped, it knocked out two additional substations, Brown said.

TEP crews were able to reroute power to two other substations to return service. Capt. Joe Gulotta, spokesman for the Tucson Fire Department, said there were no major incidents during the outage.

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/local/6_6_01power_outage.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), June 07, 2001