Some Hays residents may have noticed a power outage Monday morning.  Midwest Energy’s Corporate Communications Manager Mike Morley told Hays Post that the incident occurred around 9:00 am Monday, November 25th.

Morley said that the affected area impacted around 1100 customers.  He added that some residents were without power for as little as 8 minutes and some for as long as 70 minutes.

At this time, officials don’t know what caused the outage, except that two switches in the substations opened up due to voltage irregularity.  Crews had to close those switches and make a couple of other minor repairs to reestablish service.  They are now working to determine the cause of the outage to help prevent future incidents.

Common causes of such an outage include:

• Animals getting into a transformer or the substation itself trying to get warm
• Tree limbs touching a line
• Ties that secure the lines becoming loose
• A pole is hit with a vehicle or piece of equipment that causes lines and transformers to be jostled

Morley said that while this was one of the city’s larger outages he’s seen, crews were able to restore service fairly quickly. He added that anyone experiencing an outage should call Midwest Energy right away.

“The reason for that is it helps us establish a better boundary. We have an outage management system that says this is the likely area that is impacted but if people call in, it enables us to set a more accurate boundary and helps us in the restoration of service.”

Midwest energy can be reached at 1-800-222-3121 or 625-3437.