Brief Electrical Outage Required For Emergency Maintenance

By Andrew Gorosko

A planned electrical outage, required to perform emergency maintenance on failing electrical equipment, caused approximately 6,800 Connecticut Light & Power Company (CL&P) customers in the southern two-thirds of town to lose their electrical service for 13 seconds at about 9 pm Tuesday.

As a precautionary measure, local firefighters used portable lighting equipment during the electrical outage to illuminate intersections, where police directed traffic, while traffic signals were out of service.

William Haggerty, CL&P’s division manager for Newtown, said Wednesday that during a routine equipment check at the company’s electrical substation on South Main Street at about noon on Tuesday, it was learned that a mechanical failure had occurred in an electrical switch that handles a 115,000-volt current. The substation is on the east side of South Main Street, near its intersection with Park Lane.

The equipment checks were being conducted as part of the electric utility’s annual planned maintenance program in preparation for the summertime peak-demand period for electricity, Mr Haggerty said.

In doing the testing, electrical workers found “a very hot spot on a major switch,” Mr Haggerty said. In order to deal with the problem, CL&P would need to briefly shut down power in the area, he said.

CL&P notified the town government and major electric customers midafternoon on Tuesday that it would have to shut off local electric service briefly to deal with the problem, Mr Haggerty said.

It was unclear how long the power would be off, but was estimated there would be a five- to 15-minute outage to take the failed switch out of service, so that repairs could later be made, he said.

It was decided that 9 pm Tuesday would be a good time for the planned outage, it being a time when the lack of electrical service would cause minimal disruption, he said. The outage affected areas lying south of the Main Street flagpole.

“It went much better than planned,” Mr Haggerty said of the brief 13-second outage. Repairing damaged electrical equipment will ensure the electrical network’s reliability during the summer, when there is a high demand for electricity, he said.

Police Lieutenant James Mooney said that on learning of the planned outage on Tuesday afternoon, police determined which local intersections would need special attention during the loss of power.

 Police enlisted the aid of the five local volunteer fire departments for emergency lighting equipment. Newtown Hook and Ladder, Sandy Hook, Botsford, Hawleyville, and Dodgingtown firefighters were sequentially dispatched to major intersections in their respective fire districts where a power failure would mean that traffic signals would not be working.

The firefighters used their portable emergency lighting gear to illuminate the intersections where police officers were stationed to direct traffic.

Lt Mooney said there were no traffic problems created by the outage.

When the power went off, the new emergency generator at the police station turned itself on.

Fire Marshal Bill Halstead, who is the Sandy Hook fire chief, said Sandy Hook firefighters used their portable lighting equipment to illuminate Sandy Hook intersections where there are traffic signals, including Sandy Hook Center, the intersection of Route 34 and Mile Hill Road, and the intersection of Route 34 and Toddy Hill Road.