Line Break Cause Of Tuesday Morning Widespread Power Outage

MISSISSIPPI (WCBI) – An entire county in Mississppi, and some surrounding areas, were without power this morning for a little over an hour.

In an emailed statement, Tennessee Valley Authority spokesman Scott Brooks says that a “broken static wire” was the cause of the outage, and explained that that is the non-energized wire on top of a power structure that protects the actual powerlines from lightning.

Brooks went on to say that the wire broke apart and fell onto an energized line, causing a short and the subsequent outage that lasted approximately one hour and fourteen minutes.

The line was a 161,000 volt line between the Columbus, Weyerhauser, South Macon, DeKalb areas.

Tennessee Valley Authority is investigating the cause of the line break, and says all Mississippi customers’ power should be restored.