Chesterton Tribune

 

 

Outage affects Valpo shopping mall district

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Scores of Valparaiso businesses and hundreds of their customers were affected by a power outage on Sunday in the shopping district along Ind. 2 and Silhavy Road.

NIPSCO spokesman Nick Meyer told the Chesterton Tribune today that a total of 431 customers was juiceless for nearly four hours.

The outage occurred between 1:30 and 2 p.m., Meyer said, and a NIPSCO crew immediately responded. The crew, however, supposed that the cause of the blackout was similar to one which impacted the same general area about a month ago, when an animal found its way into an underground switch gear.

After being unable to find anything wrong with those buried cables, the crew turned its attention elsewhere and finally, in an area closer to Washington Township, it discovered that a guy wire supporting a NIPSCO pole had broken and fallen across an overhead line, Meyer said.

“We don’t know why the guy wire came down,” Meyer added. “There’s a number of scenarios but without being there and actually seeing it happen we can’t say for sure.”

The power of all but about 40 customers was restored some three and a half hours after NIPSCO was first notified of the problem. The rest were picked up later, Meyer said.

 

Posted 3/16/2015

 
 

 

 

 

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