Blackout affects thousands
A tripped relay at the Newtown substation blacked out thousands Friday morning, affecting customers of both McMinnville and Caney Fork Electric.
The blackout, which lasted about 16 minutes, was caused when Tennessee Valley Authority workers at the west substation at Newtown accidentally tripped a relay while working inside the station. The incident cut power to about half McMinnville Electric’s customers and a large part of Caney Fork’s customers outside the city limits.
Along with the immediate affect to households and businesses which were caught by surprise by the sudden blackout, motorists in the city were greeted by the loss of traffic light service at intersections. Police hustled to cover as many intersections as possible to curtail any traffic problems.
Meanwhile, providers were receiving streams of calls as customers called to report their electricity was not working.
“Our world lit up around here for a bit,” said Rodney Boyd of McMinnville Electric, noting operators were busy fielding calls from customers during the short blackout which fell around 8:30 a.m.
The blackout; however, was lifted as quick as it came as a simple resetting of the system turned juice back on to the thousands of customers hit by the incident.