Electricity restored for 11,000 Second recent outage for Putnam Thursday December 7, 2000

By Scott Finn Putnam County Reporter

The power was back on by about 4 p.m. for all of the 11,000 Putnam and Mason County residents who lost their electricity Wednesday morning, according to Jeri Matheny of American Electric Power. This is the second time in less than a month that Putnam County has experienced a major power outage.

Matheny said the outage took place around 6 a.m. when a transmission line burned through and fell into the Mud River outside Milton. Customers in Winfield, Hurricane, Teays Valley, Bancroft, Poca, Leon and surrounding areas lost power.

Temperatures on Wednesday morning dipped into the low 20s. On the even colder night of Nov. 21, about 6,000 AEP customers in Putnam County lost their power when a substation in Bancroft failed.

The majority of residents had their power restored a few hours after the outage.

Most residents were inconvenienced but not endangered by Wednesday's outage, according to local officials. The majority of residents had their power restored a few hours after the outage.

No one asked the local American Red Cross chapter or the sheriff's department for emergency help, according to representatives of both organizations.

AEP is investigating the cause of the transmission line failure, Matheny said. She didn't think high customer demand was a major cause.

About 4,000 children were sent home from school because of the outage. Schools that were closed included Confidence Elementary, Conner Street Elementary, Hometown Elementary, Hurricane High, Poca Elementary, Poca Middle, West Teays, Winfield High and Winfield Middle.

All schools are expected to be back in session today.

Some residents in the Hometown area also lost their power Tuesday afternoon, according to residents. Matheny said that power outage was not related to Wednesday's.

http://www.wvgazette.com/news/Today/2000120657/

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), December 07, 2000