Ergon Energy will cut power to the entirety of Eidsvold on Wednesday afternoon after its crews discovered major damage to one of the town’s power lines.
A spokesperson for the electricity company announced an imminent shut-down of the town’s power at 12:30pm on 13 May, describing how a routine maintenance job in Eidsvold spiralled into a full outage.
According to Ergon, when crews attempted to access a power line they discovered its insulator – a component which prevents the current in the lines from flowing into the power pole itself – barely hanging on.
A picture of the scene showed the glass insulator, affixed to a hook and secured via a bolt and nut, screwed into a severely splintered wooden pole.
“This insulator is holding up a power line carrying 66,000 volts, and it’s hanging on by hopes and prayers,” Ergon’s spokesperson said.
The discovery prompted crews to prepare an emergency shut-off of power to the town of Eidsvold in order to repair the broken pole.
“This job is way too dangerous to do live – even for our experienced team – so we will need to turn power off to ensure the crossarm and equipment can be safely replaced,” Ergon’s spokesperson said.
“There’s a real risk of a fire, damage to other network equipment, or the safety of anyone nearby if this [pole] lets go while it’s live,” they explained.
The affected pole carries a line which supplies power to the entirety of Eidsvold.
Ergon planned for the outage to begin at 12:30pm, but as of 1:30pm the company’s ‘Outage Finder’ website has not yet displayed a service interruption in the town.
A spokesperson for the company said that work on the damaged pole – and the resulting power outage – was set to begin “any time after 1:30pm,” and that crews hope they will be able to restore power to Eidsvold by late afternoon on Wednesday.
