Huge Outage Cuts Power to Thousands in Northern Nevada
A massive power outage cut electricity to thousands of customers in northern Nevada today, apparently caused by a failure in transmission facilities in Idaho, a Sierra Pacific Power Co. spokesman said.
Electricity to Reno, Sparks, Carson City and a number of Lake Tahoe communities failed shortly before 10 a.m., according to Sierra Pacific information officer Bob Sagan.
“We lost three transmission interties,” said Sagan. “It appears to be a transmission problem in Idaho, but we don’t know the nature yet.
“It’s affecting half of our 216,000 customers,” he said, adding that the company began restoring power to some customers after hooking up to Pacific Gas & Electric Co. supplies from California.
“It’s just a matter of time” before the rest are back in service, he said.
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