Switch to blame for local outage
Marion city crews were busy Friday evening, making necessary repairs and adjustments to get electricity back on for residents.
According to Harvey Sanders, the city's public utilities director, a switch blew out at an electrical station on West Santa Fe Street.
City crews worked diligently to temporarily bypass the switch with the electrical line so power could be restored in a timely manner.
"Places other than Marion were without power," Sanders said. Unfortunately, Marion was without electricity the longest.
"It took a little while to disconnect Marion's switch to get others back on," Sanders said.
Power was restored at approximately 9:50 p.m., four hours later.
A new custom-built switch will be installed when the city receives it. The cost of the switch was not yet known, Sanders said.
The city also experienced a power outage Feb. 12 when electricity was out in Marion, Hillsboro, Peabody, Florence, and other parts of the county. That outage occurred when a wire came off an insulator and was a Westar issue.
Friday night's outage caused the Marion High School basketball games to be postponed until Saturday evening. Luckily the weather was warmer than previous nights with the lows in the 40s.
