By Tom Fink
December 30, 2009 — Nearly 2,000 people were without power early this morning as one of Claremore’s centralized substations went out for reasons unknown.
According to City of Claremore Director of Utilities Tim Miller, at 5:30 a.m., Substation 1 (near Stillwater Milling) went down, causing power failure to nearby residences and businesses, notably along the Will Rogers Boulevard and Route 66 corridors.
“We had crews on site by 6 a.m., who managed to redirect power from alternate sources — other substations within the city — and by 6:45 a.m., all power had been restored,” he said.
As to the reason for the outage, Miller said it is still under investigation.
“Right now, we’ve got representatives from Grand River Dam Authority (GRDA) at substation 1 to determine the cause of the outage,” he said. “At this time, it’s unknown if it was weather-related, but fortunately, the outage was short enough not to cause any food spoilage due to freezers not working, and it was early enough not to greatly impact morning traffic.”
Once the cause of the outage has been found, Miller said it shall be evaluated and determined if it could have been prevented and steps will be taken to prevent it from happening in the same manner again.
