Power back on for nearly 200 CEC members N. of Madras

(Update: Power restored; tree limb had fallen on line)

On a day with soaring temperatures, about 190 Central Electric Cooperative members north of Madras lost power for about 90 minutes late Monday afternoon, officials said.

Power was restored around 5:30 p.m., an hour and a half after a line feeding the Madras substation went off-line.

Crews were able to restore service by closing a switch in the substation that opened, possibly triggered by line construction work,” an update on the CEC site stated.

“The protection sensitivity levels in the substation were set to high to increase safety for a crew contracted by CEC to replace aged power poles in the area, part of the cooperative’s ongoing pole replacement program,” the utility explained.

CEC officials said Tuesday an investigation determined a tree limb fell onto a power line, tripping the Madras substation offline. Because of the heightened sensitivity levels of protective equipment there, the circuit stayed open, and it would have been a momentary outage otherwise.

The settings ensure a crew member will be exposed to electric current for a much shorter time, should he or she accidentally come in contact with the energized line, they said.