ORLANDO, Fla.,None — The power was restored to nearly 16,000 OUC customers in West Orange County on Friday. A contractor accidentally knocked out power to homes, businesses and schools, an OUC official told WFTV.
A large portion of MetroWest lost power near Kirkman Road and Apopka-Vineland Road. Thousands of people were inconvenienced, including Richmond Heights Elementary School; officials there said they almost sent students home for the day.
OUC said the outage was started when a contractor accidentally cut a guy-wire, which is used to support power poles. When it was cut, the pole began wobbling, which caused a chain reaction leading to the power outage that affected 15,800 customers.
"And we had a new ice flavor coming out today, so I was worried I wasn't going to be able to have that ice available for customers coming for our new flavor today," said Larry Coughlin, owner of Rita's Italian Ice Shop.
The contractor was doing work in the Richmond Heights area off LB McLeod Road near Richmond Heights Elementary. The school's principal told WFTV she was seconds away from sending her students home for the day when the power came back on.
The outage lasted 43 minutes.
It caused some traffic jams, as well, when dozens of traffic signals went out in MetroWest. All the traffic signals were working properly after power was restored.
OUC workers had to re-route a circuit breaker to get the power back on.
WFTV