Sep. 8—Over the weekend, thunderstorms rolled through Wilson County and disabled power in more than 1,200 homes.
At 9:08 p.m. on Saturday, lightning struck a Middle Tennessee Electric (MTE) pole in the southern part of Lebanon and caused the outage.
Larry Rose, a spokesperson for MTE, indicated on Tuesday that the lightning strike not only damaged a pole but burned two cross arms, knocked out a transformer, and dropped a power line as well.MTE dispatched a crew immediately," Rose said. "Our systems control was able to reroute the electricity almost immediately ... 718 member accounts were restored in 12 minutes.
"Another 743 accounts were restored within 55 minutes. The final 24 accounts were out for four hours and 42 minutes because they were closest to the damaged pole, and we could not reroute the electricity to them without repairs being made to the damaged items."
Rose mentioned that the crew on site replaced two cross arms, the transformer, and re-attached the static line, which he said allowed all previous switching to revert to the regular feed.
"We've also scheduled the damaged pole for replacement in the upcoming weeks," Rose said.
Rerouting power around the damage and getting lights back on at the impacted homes was made possible with the MTE smart-grid technology.
"In the old days, if there were an outage, most utilities would assign a crew or supervisor and literally follow the line down the road to find where a wire was down or broken," Rose said. "Sometimes, it would be a tree laying across the line. In this case, it was a lightning bolt. As you can imagine, it was time-consuming and didn't make for very good customer service."
The inception of the smart grid created a communication pathway for the electrical system.
"Essentially, what that does is tie the pieces of the grid together so that it communicates back to a central location," Rose said. "Frankly, that is one of the reasons we made an investment in United Communications so we could use a fiber-optic network to connect all of our substations and connect it back to systems control."
Rose described systems control like a NASA control center, where people are looking at displays so that when there is an outage, the substation can communicate instantaneously back to systems control.
"Depending on what is going on, the computers will try to route things around the break in the line or some of the employees in systems control will work to reroute it around the break," Rose said. "A grid in a lot of ways is like a big circle with hundreds of thousands of circles within it."
That feature enables it to work like a strand of modern Christmas lights so that if one light goes out, it doesn't knock out the string.
"It allows all the pieces and components of the grid to talk to each other so that if there is a problem, it can be easier to find and start rectifying the situation," Rose said.
The outage last weekend was due to a lightning strike, which is impossible to predict. However, that doesn't mean one can't be ready in the event of an outage to deal with no electricity for a certain period of time.
MTE provides steps to take if one finds themselves without power.
Customers are encouraged to check circuit breakers or fuses to see if it's an isolated problem. Then, they should examine the meter and call a certified electrician if the meter box or any wires look damaged. They may need to make repairs before MTE can reconnect power.
If no problems are identified, customers should call the MTE outage reporting line at 1-877-777-9111 and enter the account number, meter number, or telephone number associated with the account.
Ready.gov is a website for disaster preparedness.
It lists multiple items to consider if one's power goes out, like keeping freezers and refrigerators closed and having alternate plans for refrigerating medicines or using power-dependent medical devices. If it is cold, individuals are advised not to use a gas stove or oven to heat the home. One should also disconnect appliances and electronics to avoid damage from electrical surges.
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