Outages after tree falls on pole

Published 8:39 pm Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Hundreds in the Farmville area were left without power after a tree fell on a pole in the area of Route 133 and College Road Thursday afternoon.

Power was incrementally restored following the incident, Dominion Senior Communications Specialist Janell Hancock said Thursday.

The power outage was a result of a tree falling on a pole, breaking the pole and downing two wires. Hancock said the incident took place at approximately 12:30 p.m. Thursday.

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Farmville Fire Department Chief Dean Farmer said Thursday, “At 12:40 (p.m.) Farmville Fire Department was requested to assist Hampden-Sydney Fire Department with a transformer fire at 5154 Farmville Road. Upon our arrival both lanes of Farmville Road were shut down due to lines being across both lanes of travel. Also two trees were on fire, and crews from Farmville and Hampden-Sydney assisted with traffic control and extinguished the fire. The scene was turned over to Dominion (Energy), and all fire crews returned to service. The scene was under control within 20 minutes.”

Hancock noted that as of approximately 1:50 p.m. Thursday, 667 were left without power. The original number had been 732 customers without power.

“We are starting to restore customers incrementally as we can get power rerouted,” Hancock said.

The original estimated time of power restoration was between 4-7 p.m., Hancock said.

“When you have to replace a pole that can take some time,” she said. “What we’re doing in the meantime is trying to reroute power to that area. We do that by what we call ‘switching,’ because all of the electric lines are networked together, so if you lose power from one source, you can draw power from another source and redirect it.”

Hancock confirmed Monday that power to the area was restored by 2:54 p.m. Thursday.