Failed equipment leads to power outage in Torrington

A non-weather related equipment failure left a good portion of Torrington without power early Tuesday morning.

Electric Superintendent Dana Yountz tells KNEB News power was lost right around 3:00 a.m. when one of two circuits from the Western Area Power Administration failed.

Yountz says the circuit locked out when a switch broke and fell down into another phase, causing the outage affecting one large substation, one small substation and the Western Sugar Factory.

He says there was no ice build-up, but the location of the breakage is about 100 feet from the BNSF tracks, and vibrations from passing trains cause porcelain components to crack and fail.

The outage caused a late start at the high school, as well as outages to automated weather stations at the Airport and at Main Street Market.

Yountz says power crews worked in rough weather conditions for several  hours before service was restored shortly after 6:00 a.m.