Grand Marais Public Utility workers had a backhoe standing by to unearth a broken power line on Tuesday, March 19. The excavation will wait until spring though, as the electrical lines were temporarily rerouted to get the power back on.
Unexpectedly, at about 2:45 p.m. on March 19, 2013, the power went out in downtown Grand Marais. Crews with MSA Professional Services of Duluth, drilling boreholes for environmental soil sampling had cut a main circuit in the alley behind the Lake Superior Trading Post. Fortunately no one was injured, but the electricity in homes and businesses from Eighth Avenue to Steve’s Sports on the east side of Grand Marais was knocked out until about 4:30 p.m.
It looked as though the outage may be quite lengthy as Grand Marais Public Utility workers arrived to investigate. They first had to figure out what line had been hit. Grand Marais PUC workers had conducted line locating, as required by law before any sort of digging takes place, and the MSA Professional Services crew had not drilled where the lines were painted on the ground and the snow. For some reason the locating equipment did not register the electric line that was severed.
As they tried to determine the cause of the outage, some line workers surveyed the area with the locating equipment and others went to get a backhoe to dig up the line for repair.
The backhoe was not used however and the broken line was left as it is for now, to be repaired when the ground thaws. Crews determined that they could temporarily reroute the electrical lines in the electrical pedestal serving the area.
City Administrator Mike Roth explained, “One of the reasons it was so difficult to fix is that there are so many ways we feed downtown. But it also means we were able to reconfigure things. That feed is just not energized for now.”
Asked why the line locating did not find the line that was cut, Roth said he didn’t know. He stressed that MSA Professional Services did not do anything wrong. He said the city’s insurance company would investigate the outage, as there was apparently some damage to electronics in the affected area.
Anyone with questions about the outage can contact City Administrator Mike Roth at (218) 387-1848.
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