By DAVE SCHULTZ
An equipment problem in downtown Bluffton left approximately 150 customers of Bluffton Utilities without power for four hours Tuesday afternoon. Another 150 customers were without power for a lesser amount of time.
Jon Oman, the city operations manager, said the cause of the outage was a device referred to as a reclosure and it is located in the alley between the News-Banner and the Moose Lodge. The alley runs between Wabash Street on the north and Perry Street on the south.
A blackout occurred early in the afternoon for about 30 seconds, but the reclosure righted itself and restored power. However, a later outage after 2 p.m. saw the reclosure not reset itself, cutting power to customers between the reclosure and the city’s electrical substation on Indiana Street just south of Wiley Avenue.
Oman said the device confused utility workers at first because it did not seem to be damaged from the outside. However, once they understood the problem, they got it fixed to restore power to about half of the affected customers. The other 150 customers did not have their power restored until about 6:20 p.m.
daves@news-banner.com
