Sunday is the day power went out in parts of Columbus

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – We’ve taken dozens of calls and messages from our loyal viewers.

A 90 second power hit impacted 6,000-7,000 people in Columbus on Sunday, including us right here at WCBI.

A tripped breaker caused the outage at one of the Columbus Light and Water substations, leaving many in the dark, and us off the air.

Sunday is the day the lights went out in parts of Columbus.

A glitch in a TVA’s service line caused a power outage at the Columbus Light and Water College Street Substation.

“We were actually testing equipment for safety, so we were performing relay tests and during that test, it tripped a breaker, so it turned the power out to folks in Columbus,” said TVA Media Relations, Scott Fiedler.

The hit played out across all of south side, the downtown area, and near the hospital.

“We immediately were able to get the power back on. It lasted anywhere from about a minute to about two minutes. During that test, we found an issue with wiring, so today we are rewiring it to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”

Although the power outage was less than five minutes, its quick life span seems a lot longer for some customers.

Columbus Light and Water General Manager Todd Gale says the hit impacted technical equipment more than anything.

“It’s just like any major storm, your power goes out and it just, some things take longer to get back in place. Hospitals, water plants, television stations, those are the ones that are going to be affected the most.”

Gale says anything from animals, to trees on wires can cause power to go out, but in this situation, he says these things just happen.

He also doesn’t think it has anything to do with the power grid’s age.

“It is aging, but they reinvest in it every year. They are upgrading now, they are upgrading their fiber over the next few years, so it is aging, but they are putting money back into the system.”

Our thanks to you for your patience as our crews worked around the clock getting us back on air.