The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE —
A brief outage left about 5,000 Duke Energy customers on the south end of Terre Haute and Vigo County without power for about 20 minutes on Friday morning.
District manager Rick Burger told the Tribune-Star that a transmission line experienced some trouble at about 9:25 a.m., tripping some outages in the southern end of the city and county.
Duke Energy rerouted the power onto another circuit to pick up the load, Burger said, while personnel sought the cause of the outage so that repairs could be made.
An equipment failure occurred at a substation between Brazil and Terre Haute, said Duke Energy spokesperson Angeline Protogere on Friday afternoon.
Power was out at several high-traffic intersections on U.S. 41 and was reported out at several businesses and schools.
Power had been restored to Terre Haute South Vigo High School as of about 9:50 a.m. Friday.
Vigo County School Superintendent Dan Tanoos reported that power was also lost at Honey Creek Middle School and Dixie Bee Elementary School for about 20 minutes.
As soon as the outage occurred, Tanoos said, security personnel were sent to the schools as a precaution. Students in dark classrooms were moved to lighted areas, he said.
“By the time I was walking into Dixie Bee, the lights were coming on,” Tanoos said.
Honey Creek Fire Department also reported that power was restored in the area around 9:50 a.m.
The Duke Energy website showed a major power outage and several minor outages in the area.
Terre Haute Regional Hospital was not affected by the power outage.
Hospital spokesperson Ann Marie Foote told the Tribune-Star that the hospital has feeds from multiple transformers, along with the ability to switch to an alternate should an outage occur.
In addition, the hospital has generators for back-up power should both feeds have an outage simultaneously, she said.
