Storms Cut Power to 18,000 Households

Wet snow and high winds over the weekend knocked out power to about 18,000 households, leaving some homes in the Salt Lake Valley without electricity until Sunday around midnight.

The worst of the outages came Saturday morning, according to Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Dave Eskelsen. Crews worked to fix problems affecting the greatest number of customers first, then worked their way to problems affecting only a few customers.

Davis County and Weber County crews were called in to help with outages in the Salt Lake Valley. Out-of-state crews were on call but weren’t needed, Eskelsen said.

Problems ranged from hanging wires to insulator failure to tree branches heavy with snow colliding with power lines, Eskelsen said.

By Sunday night, only about 1,800 customers were without power, Eskelsen said. Customers will not be billed for the time their electricity was not running.

(c) 2007 Deseret News (Salt Lake City). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.