Power outage blamed on critter

Sandra Hansen
Posted 7/21/17

Power was disrupted across much of the east part of Torrington Monday when a small animal damaged one of the main circuit power lines.

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Power outage blamed on critter

Posted

TORRINGTON – Power was disrupted across much of the east part of Torrington Monday when a small animal damaged one of the main circuit power lines.
According to Dana Youtz, supervisor of the city’s electric department, the damaged line, combined with the increased demand for air conditioners, caused an overload on the other two circuits.
“It was at the Curtis Street Substation at 20th and East J Street, and caused us to lose the entire circuit,” Youtz said Wednesday morning.

“Normally, it wouldn’t have shut down the entire circuit, but the load caused an imbalance that kicked it off.”
Youtz said four department employees responded to the emergency. On Wednesday, the crew was moving some of the load from the impacted circuit to the other two lines to even the load.
They first tried to solve the problem at the substation, but it kicked off again, so they had to rebalance the system.
The Monday power loss lasted about one and a half hours, and included customers as far east as Dinklage Feedlot, in addition to Saint Joseph’s Children’s Home, and City Water/Waste Water and Baler facilities.