Outage hits 3 counties
By Jerry Sena

A Duke Power transmission line failed Thursday afternoon leaving three mountain counties without power, disabling traffic lights, and stranding one woman in a Boone bank elevator. Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation spokesperson Renee Whitener said the outage began at 1:12 p.m., lasted about 32 minutes, and affected 53,000 customers in Watauga, Ashe, and Allegheny counties. With the exception of parts of Boone, Blue Ridge is the sole provider of power to the three counties most affected by the outage, Whitener said.

Duke Power spokesman Jason Walls said the outage, which originated on a transmission line in the Horse Gap area along the Ashe/Wilkes county line, also affected 115 Duke Power customers in Wilkes County. Walls said a tripped breaker was behind the interruption, but technicians were still investigating what caused the failure.

Despite the absence of traffic lights throughout Boone, Boone Police Chief Bill Post said no car accidents were reported.

The biggest problem for Boone police was an emergency generator malfunction that hindered communications at the outset of the blackout. Post said officers were forced to coordinate traffic control with cell phones until the communications system could be re-energized. Post said his department was flooded with calls from residents informing his department the power was out, a fact that was already starkly obvious to him and his officers. "We already knew the power was out," Post said. "it really overwhelmed our communications for a while there.

"People should assume we already know there's a power outage," he said, and refrain from tying up phone lines with calls unless there's a specific emergency to report. Post said, to his surprise, there were no accidents despite the loss of every traffic light in the town.

The relatively brief duration of the outage saved officials from further chaos, Post said. He'd already called in reinforcements to help with traffic and other operations but power was restored before they arrived. Watauga County Fire Marshall Ronnie Marsh said a woman was stranded briefly in a Wachovia Bank elevator. She was evacuated through the top of the elevator using a ladder from the floor above. She was reportedly not injured. "No problems, no excitement, she was perfectly fine," Marsh said. "when we got the call, we probably had her out in 10 minutes, total."