Power outage impacts 500 customers in Wallaceburg

When Shanah Martin-McCready and her family were driving back into Wallaceburg along Highway 40 on Saturday night, she saw a flash so bright, she thought it was lightning.

“When we made it in to town, all the power was out until we got to our street,” she said.

As it turns out, a device used on power systems to protect the insulation and conductors of the system from lightning was the cause of the black-out.

“Customers in Wallaceburg experienced a power outage Saturday evening, extending into Sunday morning, affecting approximately 500 customers, Entegrus officials stated.

“The reason for the outage was a blown lightning arrester at a customer owned station. This caused the Entegrus system to trip. Delays were due to delays in locating the malfunctioning third party equipment.”

The outage lasted from around 11 p.m. on Saturday night until approximately 6:15 a.m. on Sunday morning.

An “officer was at the intersection (of Baseline Road and Murray Street) for several hours, but it was just for safety purposes as there were no functioning lights,” Const. Josh Corbin, of the Chatham-Kent Police Service, told the Sydenham Current.

Locations in the McNaughton Avenue business area were completely in the dark, including the street lights.

“Entegrus is looking into making improvements to ensure these types of occurrences are limited in the future, we apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused.”

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