High winds had lights blinking around Warren County on Monday, with scattered outages leaving some without power for short periods on the blustery day.
“We probably had about 1,500 customers out system-wide, that’s across four counties,” said Danny Sutton, director of operations for Caney Fork Electric, noting winds with gusts clocked at upwards of 50 mph, toppled branches and trees onto power lines. “There’s not much you can do about it when the wind gets that high.”
Rodney Boyd, president and CEO of McMinnville Electric, said the combination of wet ground and high winds made some trees more susceptible.
“We had a couple of outages that affected around 500 customer,” Boyd said, noting the outages were trees outside the utility’s right of way, that fell onto lines near the National Guard Armory and off West End. “It was a super wet ground with some extremely high winds.”
Boyd said those who noticed a blinking or momentary dip in voltage were witnessing the electrical equipment doing its job as lines were being pelted with debris and wet branches, driven into them by the wind which was unrelenting most of Monday.
“That’s the equipment that protects the lines,” Boyd explained. “It was doing its job.”