TENNERTON — An unplanned afternoon power outage in Tennerton, Hinkleville and beyond affected an estimated 1,100 people and business owners on Wednesday, according to FirstEnergy’s outage website.
Steve Wykoff, director of the Upshur County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said his contacts at Mon Power reported that two circuits were completely locked out.
“That affects the substations that are downstream, so to speak,” Wykoff told My Buckhannon Wednesday afternoon. “They’ve got technicians on their way to figure out what’s going on if they’re not there already.”
Of the 12,840 customers served by Mon Power, exactly 1,085 — or about 8.45 percent — were without power as of 3 p.m. Wednesday.
Wendling’s in Tenerton announced it would be closed for the remainder of the day, and power was also out at Buckhannon-Upshur High School.
By late Wednesday afternoon, workers had traced the outage to a powerline owned by the coal company in Sago that had broken and fallen onto a First Energy line, Wykoff said. The power company removed the broken line and reset the circuits, which restored power to the vast majority of the customers in the area.
By 7:30 p.m., no Mon Power customers in Upshur County were without electricity, according to the FirstEnergy outage map.
