Equipment failure causes power outage, affects Washington, much of Wilkes Co.

Equipment failure caused a power outage Tuesday that put all of Washington and large parts of Wilkes County in the dark for some two hours, bringing business to a halt and slowing traffic in town.

A short-circuit in a transformer at the Georgia Power substation on Gordon Street cut the entire area off from its 115,000-volt incoming power supply, Washington City Electrical Department head Mike Hardy said. The substation splits the incoming electricity to Washington city customers and Rayle EMC cus- tomers in the county, and all were without power during the outage.

As the extent of the power outage became apparent, many businesses around town closed down for the day, largely unable to serve customers or use computers.

With the city's seven traffic lights dark, city police and county deputies manned the most critical intersections and directed traffic. Some drivers remembered the rule about how to drive when approaching a dead traffic signal, but many didn't. "When a traffic signal isn't working, approaching drivers should treat that intersection as a four-way stop," said Chief Mike Davis. "All drivers must stop at the intersection, then carefully proceed in turn just like you would at a four-way stop. But you always stop at a dead traffic signal, unless an officer signals you otherwise - that's the law."

No traffic accidents were reported during the power outage.

There was a small fire on Lovelace Way involving a kerosene space heater during the outage, but no injuries were reported.

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