TVA insulator fails

many lose power

July 7, 2000

An equipment failure at a Tennessee Valley Authority electric substation left 15,000 customers in Jefferson, Grainger and Sevier counties without power for more than an hour Thursday. The outage occurred around 6 a.m. when a porcelain insulator at a TVA substation at Cherokee Dam failed, cutting off power to Jefferson City, New Market, Rutledge, half of Grainger County and part of the Piedmont area, officials said.

The loss of electricity was caused by an equipment failure, said TVA spokesman Gil Francis. Electricity for about 39 percent of the utility's 39,000 customers was cut off until 7:25 a.m.

While TVA repaired the Cherokee Dam substation, power was restored to the 15,000 customers by rerouting electricity through another of the utility's three electricity delivery points, said Greg Williams, director of engineering and operations for the Appalachian Electric Cooperative, the local utility. The repairs were completed around 11:30 a.m

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 07, 2000