PPL: Vandals caused outage

Jun 11 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Amanda Christman and Kent Jackson Standard-Speaker, Hazleton, Pa.

 

Vandals throwing tree limbs on electric lines leading to PPL's substation in Harwood severed power to more than 10,000 customers in the Hazleton area for close to three hours on Sunday evening.

PPL Spokesman Joe Nixon said tree limbs had been thrown over the lines in the area two weeks earlier, too, but didn't cause a widespread outage then.

Nixon said PPL reported the incident to Hazleton police.

"Throwing anything on power lines is very dangerous and could result in somebody being injured or killed," Nixon said.

The tree limbs cut power to 10,466 customers around 6 p.m.

Workers responded to where the branches crossed the lines and to the substation. They restored power to all but a dozen customers by 8:45 p.m., Nixon said.

The final 12 customers regained power by 9:30 p.m., he said.

Residential customers and businesses lost power, and several traffic signal lights also went dark during the outage.

At the Hazleton YMCA-YWCA, workers arriving on Monday morning discovered that the power outage damaged their telephones, which they don't expect to fix until Thursday at the earliest.

"We had to order a part. It blew our whole phone system," Alyssa Boyle, the Y's marketing director, said.

Meanwhile, people can call the Y at an alternate telephone number: 570-233-9157.

In recent months, PPL has reported other crimes in which thieves break into electrical facilities to steal copper wiring. About 24 incidents happened in Eastern and Central Pennsylvania, and most occurred at substations, Nixon said.

For a few dollars of copper, the thieves put themselves at great risk of electrocution, he said.

Thieves also endanger workers who might unwittingly enter a station after ground wires or other safety features have been stolen or damaged, he said.

In addition to talking to police about thefts, PPL's security department investigates the cases. The company has also alerted scrap dealers.

"We're working on ways to beef up security," Nixon said. "We ask the public if they see anything to call the local police."

achristman@standardspeaker.com kjackson@standardspeaker.com

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