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Power line failure darkens north Summit

Reid Williams

SUMMIT COUNTY – At 9:22 p.m. Tuesday, the lights went out across the northern part of Summit County.

Power flickered and residents in Wildernest, Dillon, half of Silverthorne and Frisco went looking for candles. In all, about 2,460 customers went without power, according to cel Energy spokesman Steve Roalstad. Some homes and businesses were back in the light in about a half-hour and the power was fully restored by 10:30 p.m., Roalstad said.

“The cause looks like an old construction job,” Roalstad said. “Someone may have nicked one of the feeder lines and it just took some time for the cable to go bad.”



Feeder lines distribute electricity directly to customers. The lines radiate from electrical substations, which get their power from high voltage transmission lines and reduce the voltage before sending it out along the feeder lines. Only four or five feeders serve this region, “and one went out completely,” Roalstad said.

“It wasn’t a disaster, though,” said George Blincoe, Dillon Dam Brewery owner, where the power went out as patrons were finishing up dinner. “If it had happened at 7 p.m. on a busy night, it would have been terrible, but we didn’t have any problems.”



Dispatchers at Summit County’s 911 communications center said the outage caused little problem other than concern. Dispatchers received about 10 calls to 911, but none were emergency-related other than callers reporting the blackout.

Roalstad said cel workers were able to apply a temporary fix to the problem and would begin work on a permanent repair in the next day or so.

Reid Williams can be reached at (970) 668-3998 ext. 237 or rwilliams@summitdaily.com.


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