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Show Lightning Causes Blackout A lightning strike caused a near two-hour power outage last week in Panguitch and surrounding areas, affecting 1,009 consumers. Utah Power and Light spokesman Paul Henry of the UP&L Richfield office explained the cause of the one-hour and 53-minute 53-minute power outage on Wednesday, Wednes-day, Sept. 2. It was caused by a bolt of lightning that struck a 69 ,000-volt power line near the Mineral Products sub-station at Junction, blowing a circuit breaker. "Circuit breakers are designed to reclose after an interruption of service," ser-vice," said Henry. "However this one did not follow the rules." He said that a troubleman was dispatched dis-patched to the station to affect repairs. re-pairs. Two troublemen tried to get the circuit breaker reset with the standard automatic resetting controls. con-trols. "When this failed," said Henry, "even though the circuit breaker seemed to be in good order, a further fur-ther investigation revealed that the circuit breaker control unit had a blown fuse." He said that once the fuse was replaced, the control unit re-shut the breaker, power was restored. |