About 140 La Plata Electric Association customers were without power for almost five hours late Wednesday near Electra Lake, north of Durango.
LPEA spokeswoman Indiana Reed said the outage was the result of a failed cutout, which is a piece of equipment that is positioned on the top of utility poles used to protect the system.
“What can happen with the porcelain cutouts is when we get weather, and there’s freeze, thaw, freeze etc., water can get in there and the ice cracks the porcelain, causing a fault,” she said. “So that was the issue – given the frigid weather we’ve had.”
Temperatures Wednesday night dipped below zero, according to the Weather Underground website.
Power went out at 10:12 p.m., Reed said, affecting 139 members.
“Crews were called out to find the fault, which can be challenging at night in the Electra Lake/forested area, and they were able to replace the cutoff and restore power to everyone by 2:58 a.m.,” she said.
