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June 29, 2000Power outage zaps downtown Traverse CityOutage was caused when a truck rounding a corner snapped a wire supporting poleBy MARJORY RAYMER and BILL O'BRIENRecord-Eagle staff writers TRAVERSE CITY - Darkness shrouded Traverse City. At crowded intersections, anarchy ruled. And stores on Front Street refused credit cards.
A semi truck trying to round a corner snapped a wire supporting a power pole, causing a chain reaction that snapped the tops off six poles and blacked out power for about 2,500 Light and Power customers, including the entire downtown district. The outage, from 11 a.m. to 1:45 p.m., forced stores to scramble to find ways to cope. At Charlie's Deli downtown, lunch orders were filled by candlelight. Down the street at Studio Josef's, the salon chairs were pushed outside and customers got curbside haircuts. Good Harbor Coffee had lemonade, but no coffee. And employees were posted at stairways at a darkened Ben Franklin store to prevent customers, who came in anyway, from taking a wayward step. "We're trying to conduct business as usual," said Ben Franklin manager Rosie Reece. "We'll be glad to take your money or your check." Plastic became pass‚, however, because stores couldn't validate credit purchases. Not everyone managed to stay open. Yelling loudly enough to be heard through the locked glass doors at Northwestern Bank and Trust, one employee said "This is what we do (without power)" while holding up a "People" magazine. At Joe Balsamo's restaurant, where the staff had been preparing to open for lunch, they hurried to get all the food back into a still-cool cooler. At the clothing store J B & Me, sales associate Darla Stites was about to ring up a $1,000 sale when the lights went out. "The customer left, but she said she'd be back," Stites said hopefully. Painted Door Gallery also lost out on an imminent sale, and Peggy Rod could only imagine how many other sales never materialized as she and employee Jennifer Bliss sat outside drinking coffee waiting for the lights to go back on in the darkened store. "It was a perfect day for shopping," she mused. At Kilwin's of Traverse City, 6,600 gallons of premium ice cream threatened to melt after freezers there shut down. "No pressure, no freaking out," said co-owner Brian Daily. "If it stays out long, we'll just call the insurance company and State Farm will take care of it." The power outage also caused eight stop lights to go dark, several at major intersections, including Division and Front streets, Division at Grandview Parkway and M-72 and M-22, city police reported. There were no accidents related to the outage, Sgt. John Fitzgerald said. Police stationed officers at busier intersections to avoid problems, he said. Drivers are supposed to treat such intersections as four-way stops, but that courtesy seemed foreign to some drivers while others blatantly ignored it. Power returned in waves. On the west side of the city, including Front and Division and M-22 and M-72, electricity was restored a little before 1 p.m. Power was back on downtown just before 2 p.m. and the last section to be restored was the Eighth and Woodmere area, which didn't come back until about 3:30 p.m. "It's a mess ... it's not a simple outage," said Light & Power executive director Jeff Feldt as crews worked to restore power. He compared the incident to the damage created in a strong windstorm because it affected several utility poles and several circuits. Four 13,800-volt, 400-amp circuits and six utility poles were damaged. About one-quarter of Traverse City Light and Power customers were affected. A handful of commercial customers in the immediate area of the damage - including J & S Hamburg on West Front Street and the Anton office building next door, which is still under construction - had to wait for the damaged poles to be repaired or replaced before their power could be turned back on. Dutch Stevens, the utility's transmission and distribution superintendent, said that would take eight to 12 hours to complete. - Staff writer Marta Hepler Drahos contributed to this report. |
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