As of 9:33 a.m. this morning, all customers of La Plata Electric Association (LPEA) affected by the outage in the Pine River Valley area were back in power. Work continues in the area to discover the cause of the outage, but as of this writing, there is no known cause.
Initial conjecture, following visual inspection of overhead line, was a fault in the underground cable between the intersection of CR 501/502 and Forest Lakes, which traverses under the Pine River. Ultimately this proved not to be the case.
LPEA crews continue to work in the area, checking all equipment to discover and potentially make repairs on the portion of the system that caused the fault.
The outage that affected 1,083 LPEA customers began at 5:57 a.m. Friday morning.
Previous releases:
At 9 a.m. Friday, crews of La Plata Electric Association (LPEA) have isolated the general location of the fault that caused 1,083 customers to lose power at 5:57 a.m. this morning. The stretch of the underground cable affected is between the intersection of CR 501/502 and Forest Lakes, which traverses under the Pine River.
Earlier this morning, as crews narrowed down the location, power was steadily restored to those who could be switched to alternate circuits, and as of about 8:45 a.m. all affected with the exception of 49 in Pine Valley Estates (which is at the general location of the underground fault) were back in power.
At this time, until the actual fault is found, no estimate on full power restoration can be predicted. More information will be disseminated as it becomes available.
From earlier this morning:
A fault in an underground line is suspected to be the cause of a current outage in the Bayfield/Pine River Valley area, from northern Bayfield to Forest Lakes, affecting 1083 members of La Plata Electric Association (LPEA). The circuit tripped open, cutting the power at 5:57 a.m. this morning, according to a press release from LPEA.
Crews are on site, and the fault is being isolated, which should enable customers to steadily be put back in power, fed from alternate circuits.
More information will be disseminated as it becomes available.
