The Newport Plain Talk

COSBY-A severe thunderstorm is to blame for a power out in the Cosby area of Newport Utilities' electric system, which left more than 1,500 customers without power Thursday afternoon.

Shortly after 5 p.m. a transmission line service was interrupted to NU's Cosby Substation. The storms caused a tree to fall on the TVA transmission line. In addition, lightning caused failures at the substation. NU employees, along with TVA, located the tree and removed it from the line.

After the transmission line was restored, crews discovered lightning had damaged two essential pieces of equipment in the Cosby Substation. Once the pieces of equipment were isolated, power was restored to most customers by 11 p.m. Other customers remained without power until 1 a.m. when crews repaired a pole damaged by the lightning.

Newport Utilities sincerely appreciates the patience of its customers in the Cosby area during the lengthy outage.