Published: May 29, 2009 07:48 am      

Power outage hits Ellis County

An OG&E substation that suffered a failed insulator left most of Ellis County without power for about two-and-a-half hours Thursday morning.

“We had an outage at 9:45 (a.m.) and wrapped up at 12:15,” said OG&E spokesman Gil Broyles.

Affected in the outage were customers in Shattuck, Gage, Fargo and Arnett.

“About 2,000 people were without power at its height,” Broyles said, noting, “We were able to make a repair and get it back up. We usually try” to wrap things up “within a two-hour period.”

Broyles said the insulator was in a substation in Ellis County and that substations “have a lot of moving parts and technicalities.”

“Thankfully, everybody was back in service by this afternoon,” he said Thursday.

Gary Mitchell, chief executive officer of Newman Memorial Hospital in Shattuck, said patients in the facility’s care were unaffected by the outage because of a backup generator.

“We had no problems,” Mitchell said. The backup generator “worked perfectly. We test it from time to time, and it has always worked with test systems.”

Mitchell pointed out the generator powered essentials in the hospital, such as laboratories, surgery rooms and the emergency room.

However, he said, “Rooms like my office were dark.”

Ron Puckett, owner of R&R Grocery in Arnett said he had to close his store for three hours while waiting for the power to come back on.

While it wasn’t off long enough to damage produce or meat or dairy products, he said he lost business because power was off during the noon hour.

“Power was off about three hours,” he said. “I don’t know how anybody could have operated without a back up generator.”

Puckett, who doesn’t have back up in a power outage, said he had to turn off the compressors in his store because they would have been ruined by coming on all at the same time when electricity was restored.

“That’s what we had to do,” he said. “Gas stations were down because they couldn’t pump gas.”

Puckett attributed the length of the outage to living in a rural area.

“When you live in the country, you just kind of get used to this,” he said.