Power outage shuts city down late Monday

By Staff
Melissa Cason
The city of Russellville was left without power for a short time Monday evening when one of the electrical insulators failed.
Russellville Electric Board Manager Steve DeFoor said power was out to all of the board’s 5,000 customers for about an hour. The failure was caused by an insulator failure with a substation switch.
The switch sustained significant damage even though the heat from the failure only lasted seven-sixtieths of a second.
Defoor said his department managed to get the power restored to the customers.
The cost for the board to replace the switch is approximately $30,000.
While the electric board was working to get power restored, the Russellville Police Department was busy answering phone calls.
Police Chief Chris Hargett said his department received 1,387 phone calls in one hour’s time, and they were all about the power outage.
The tied lines meant that people calling for help weren’t able to get through because the phone lines were flooded with calls about the power.
Hargett said if your house is the only house without power, then you should notify authorities.