Businesses in Bodo Industrial Park were without power for less than a half-hour Thursday morning, exacerbated by a false call to 911, according to La Plata Electric Association.
Around 9:50 a.m., more than 1,000 LPEA members lost power in the Bodo Park area, south of downtown Durango. While most customers without power were businesses, the outage included Escalante Middle School, Needham Elementary School and some homes on La Posta Road (County Road 213).
LPEA spokeswoman Indiana Reed said when the power outage hit, someone called emergency dispatch to report a car had hit LPEA equipment, causing the outage.
The person who reported the supposed accident said the car was on fire, possibly with someone inside.
As a result, LPEA and emergency crews went to find the vehicle, which turned out to be a false report.
“They were in the process of doing maintenance (at the Bodo substation) and they pulled off the job to look for the car on fire,” Reed said. “They thought someone was burning up in a car and went to pull them out, which turned out not to be true. I don’t know why people would do something like that.”
It turns out, the brief outage was caused by routine maintenance being performed by LPEA crews at the Bodo substation. Power was restored around 10:20 a.m.
jromeo@durangoherald.com
