Tree branches cause blackoutsRare outages brieflly interrupt village power supply
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The branch rubbed against one of the village's two main transmission lines feeding imported hydropower to residents. When the insulation rubbed away, the line short-circuited and automatically shut down.
The outage lasted about half an hour, until a second line could be brought into service. The village was not generating any electricity from the Maple Avenue power plant at the time of the incident.
Village Administrator Ron Wasson said that the switchover and repairs were "very successfully managed" by the Electric Department and emergency staff. The repair required that both import transmission cables be taken out of service, and the village generated all power locally from about 10:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 30. There was a second brief outage when the lines were brought back into service, which affected most customers for less than five minutes.
Because of the damaged insulation, Electric Department Superintendent Paul Pallas said there would be immediate changes in the inspection program for the mile-long transmission line that comes into the power plant. "We will now physically inspect the above-ground portion of the line quarterly instead of annually, and both the underground and overhead portions of the line will undergo thermographic analysis annually instead of every two to three years," Pallas said.
The distribution lines from the Rockville Centre power plant that deliver electricity to residences and businesses will remain on a five-year inspection cycle.
The village used its new reverse 911 automated telephone system on Sept. 30 to alert the central business district and some residents to the emergency repairs and to ask them to conserve electricity throughout the day. Because of the reduced demand, the village did not have to use its older and less efficient generators to provide power.
In an unrelated incident, there was another outage on Saturday, Oct. 8, beginning around 1:30 p.m., lasting about an hour and 20 minutes and affecting about 600 customers. The cause was determined to be a tree branch that fell on a distribution line on Morris Avenue.
