ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, June 15, 1996                TAG: 9606170085
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-3  EDITION: METRO 


LIGHTS OUT IN MIDDLE OF CITY'S DAY

Approximately 4,000 American Electric Power customers in Roanoke lost electricity for about an hour Friday afternoon.

Power went off about 1:20 p.m. in the area north of Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, in the Southeast section along the Roanoke River as it curves toward Riverland Road and the lower Jefferson Avenue and Franklin Road areas in Southwest, said Mike Mercier, AEP engineering manager for the central Virginia region.

Roanoke Memorial did lose electricity, but the loss did not cause any problems because the hospital switched to auxiliary power, said Linda Cecil, a nursing supervisor. She did not know of any emergencies relating to the outage.

An equipment failure at the Walnut Avenue substation near Victory Stadium caused the power outage.

"A switch failed in some fashion as crews worked. The crews in the area are why electricity was restored so expediently," Mercier said.

AEP received no complaint calls during the outage. "We were pleased with the time it took to restore power," Mercier said.

Several Roanoke police officers had to be reassigned to direct traffic at intersections where stoplights were out, Sgt. C.J. Goens said.


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