Washington Utilities Has a Huge Blackout: The Explanation | Eastern North Carolina Now

   Today, I had a five minute chat with the Washington's Electric Utilities Director Keith Hardt about what caused last night's blackout on the east side of Washington. His answer well explained the why of this troublesome inconvenience, putting more than half of the city's users in dark for hours.

    It appears that the mechanical culprit to this unintended inconvenience was a failed breaker in the most eastern power substation located in Washington on Hodges Ave. (little more that a dirt path), between Eastern Elementary and John Small Ave. At the nexus of this blackout was a failed breaker in the substation, possibly caused by a direct lightning strike from one of the many recent storms in the days hence. Breakers are necessary to to simply break the current for any number of reasons, not least of which an overload, when not properly managed will destroy the very equipment that acts as an electrical transmitter.

    This was the case Sunday night beginning about 9:50 pm, leaving an eastern swath of the city dark, muggy, and in some cases ill-tempered.

    Utilities repair folk ascertain the predicament, and since that was no replacement breaker on hand, took some time to cogitate how best to bypass the breaker to restore power to the powerless, while not endangering the costly and most beneficial transmission equipment. It took over two hours to perform the task, and now, almost 24 hours later, the eastern sector of Washington is with power, and the substation equipment, while well jury-rigged for now, is performing the purpose for which it is intended.

    The aforementioned replacement breaker has been ordered and is currently in route, and will soon work as is intended rather that the temporary bypass. it appears that the failed breaker generally runs about 60,000.00, and is not an item one keeps laying around just for a rare occasion such as this.