(City of Red Deer)

By rdnewsNOW staff

Shocking

Equipment failures blamed for Red Deer power outages over past two days

Nov 8, 2019 | 2:00 PM

Electric, Light and Power (EL&P) crews with the City of Red Deer were called out to investigate a second major power outage in as many days on the north end Friday.

According to a City press release, Friday’s outage began around 11:30 a.m. and lasted approximately 30 minutes, affecting the same customers impacted by a similar outage on Thursday.

Officials say Friday’s outage appears to be related to an underground cable feeding a piece of equipment replaced while repairing Thursday’s outage. However, crews have made further repairs and will continue to monitor and test the equipment.

EL&P manager Jim Jorgensen reminds residents that if they see or hear flashes, bangs or other loud noises when power outages happen, to give them a call at 403-342-8274.

“That does help our crews to pinpoint where to start looking first,” he notes. “The area does span a fair distance, so sometimes it’s hard to find. Any information the public can offer that way is very helpful.”

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On Thursday, a major power outage that impacted much of north Red Deer began shortly after 3:10 p.m. says Jorgensen.

“We had an outage on a feeder that would have impacted a little more than 1000 customers, maybe about 1500,” says Jorgensen. “It impacted parts of Rosedale, Clearview, Clearview Market, Riverside Drive, around Parkland Mall and some commercial customers on the west side of Gaetz from about 67 Street north to 71 Street.”

Jorgensen says crews were able to restore power to about two-thirds of the impacted customers at around 3:30 p.m.

“So basically everyone to the east of Parkland Mall,” adds Jorgensen. “At 5 p.m. we were able to find the problem and identify it was a failed piece of equipment that was behind the Parkland Mall. Shortly after, we were able to reconfigure the system and get power back to everybody, with the exception of two sites – one in the mall and one adjacent to the mall.”

Jorgensen says the faulty piece of equipment was replaced and power was fully restored to all customers by 7:20 p.m.