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Progress Energy Checking Details Of Pinellas Outage
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Published: June 24, 2008
ST. PETERSBURG - Progress Energy is investigating a power outage Monday that left 33,000 Pinellas County customers without power, mostly in the Largo area.
"It was the result of an equipment malfunction at three of our substations," utility spokesman C.J. Drake said, adding that human error is not thought to have been a factor.
The outage began about 2:30 p.m. at a substation in Seminole and apparently had a cascading effect, Drake said. It affected a substation at Walsingham Road at 4:45 p.m. and a third substation, on Ulmerton Road, later in the evening.
Power was restored to all customers by 11:30 p.m.
"We assigned crews as soon as we knew of the problem," Drake said. "We have plans that respond to these types of problems, and we think it worked as effectively as possible considering the problems occurred in multiple locations."
Details on the equipment failure blamed for the blackout should be available today, Drake said. He said reports of a fire at the Seminole substation are unconfirmed.
The blackout also affected 17 Pinellas County pump stations, although no incidents of sewage overflow were reported, said Dave Baker, a spokesman for Pinellas utilities.
The county was able to keep the system functioning by taking nine portable generators to the affected area, which included parts of Largo, Seminole and beach communities.
"We had crews on standby in case there were incidents, but fortunately we had no overflows whatsoever," Baker said this morning.
As of 6 a.m., all 17 pump stations were in operation, he said.
Reporter Carlos Moncada can be reached at (727) 451-2333 or cmoncada@tampatrib.com.
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