Equipment failure causes power outage in Shawano

By: 
Luke Reimer
Reporter

A faulty cable connection from Shawano Municipal Utilities was at the forefront of why some Shawano residents were without power on the morning of Feb. 1.

“We found that there was a cable connection inside one of our pieces of equipment inside of our substation that faulted,” said Shawano Municipal Utilities General Manager Bruce Gomm. “It had a short circuit on it and that’s what caused the initial outage.”

From there, when SMU switched directions to bring power back on, it hit that faulted cable connection again.

“When we did our switching to bring the power back on from another direction, it also fed that same fault that we thought we had isolated, but it appears that we didn’t get it all of the way isolated,” said Gomm. “That back feed of the fault caused a fire and the second outage happened.”

The second failure, which started a fire, occurred at an industrial substation on East Richmond Street, causing more residents to lose power.

Gomm estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 residents were without power, saying that the outage occurred between 8:15 a.m. and 9:31 a.m. He said that the residents that were mainly affected live south of East Green Bay Street and east of Waukechon Street.

“When we had everything restored, I remember looking at the clock on seeing 9:31 a.m.,” said Gomm.

Moving forward, Gomm said that this incident is a reminder to SMU of how important inspections are.

“Unfortunately with cables underground in facilities like that, it is impossible to inspect that part, so we won’t really change any procedures,” said Gomm. “It is just important to us to remember that when we can, to make sure everything is in proper, working order and watch for anything like that if it happens.”


lreimer@newmedia-wi.com