COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – Coldwater Board of Public Utilities Director Paul Beckhusen delivered a power point report on the weekend blackout, its causes, and preparations for future outage situations during Monday night’s City Council meeting. Power to the entire city was out for almost 24 hours, beginning Saturday at 8:30 p.m.
There are two main electrical transmission lines that come in to the CBPU service territory.
The transmission line from the east was down for planned service by International Transmission Company.
When two poles along U.S.12 between Snow Prairie and Batavia Roads went down Saturday, so did the other transmission line feeding Coldwater.
Beckhusen said the CBPU has been working with I.T.C. to bring a third main line into the city for added service redundancy. He says it’s expected to be ready by the first quarter of 2019.
When asked why did it take I.T.C. so long to restore power, Beckhusen said they have a different business model then local municipalities. Beckhusen said what happened Saturday night was a perfect storm.
He said there was no damage to the CBPU system from the storm.
