Blackout blamed on component failure

A component failure is to blame for a power outage that hit southern Davis County during the late morning and early afternoon Friday.

The two-hour outage affected about 10,000 Rocky Mountain Power customers and 16,000 Bountiful City Light and Power customers and briefly knocked out power to Lagoon amusement park.

Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Jeff Hymas said the power provider is still investigating the Parrish substation in Centerville, where components apparently failed, bringing down that substation, as well as one in Farmington.

And because Rocky Mountain Power and Bountiful share transmission lines, Bountiful's residents lost power when large circuit breakers automatically activated to de-energize the lines, Hymas said.

That meant that most customers in Farmington, Centerville and Bountiful were without power from 11:30 a.m. until after 1 p.m.

That's when Farmington came back online, followed by Centerville at 1:18 p.m. and Bountiful at 1:30 p.m.

A few Farmington residents get their power from a substation in Fruit Heights and were unaffected, Hymas said. The same was true for the few Centerville residents who get power from another substation in the city.

Elsewhere, traffic signals went out and librarians in Davis County Library branches checked books out by hand because the computer system is connected to the headquarters branch in Farmington.

During the outage, Bountiful City Light and Power was able to keep Lakeview Hospital and some emergency services online, said Bountiful city manager Tom Hardy.

Rocky Mountain Power rerouted power to Lagoon within 45 minutes or so.

Lagoon's executive vice president of marketing Dick Andrew said the park is fortunate that the outage didn't last longer.

"We're in a power-intensive business," Andrew said.

Most rides at Lagoon have a safe-return feature so they can be unloaded if the power goes out, but Andrew said he's not aware of anyone who had to be removed from rides.

"A few people get nervous," Andrew said, "And they wonder, 'Is my day ruined?' This was fortunately taken care of so quickly."

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E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com