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Show Park City Residents Blitzed by Blackout Blues r , (C?-. J,- ; v x xls x x Vss -os, t v,y I x V v x. -x ' U X - ia.ifis,vii-'.v. ' ? V ; t is - : -: Si. ' i. , -v ;. , V J v X s Xxx X s ' . X X:-X:- ' ' ''X '. XX' . ;:;v ivi--i V ' . ':- -' UP&L Substation: the sparks were filing. Electricity has a way of frying things. Including itself. Monday, two days after Christmas, Park City was full ol visiting Skiers. Shortly before noon, the sparks started flying at Utah Power and Light's substation on Park Ave. Result: almost all of Park City loses the juice that makes things .i. It could have been worse, much worse. Power company crews raced to the scene and, in some cases, power was restored in a very short time. But there were some dicey moments. Here is a rundown of how Parkites handled the blackout. At the Park City Ski Area, it took about eight minutes to kick" all lifts, including the gondola, onto auxiliary power. According to Assistant Marketing Director Robbie Beck, all went smoothly. "We are equipp'ed to handle those types of power shortages," she said. It took a longer time to clear the gondola, which was closed down after the 11:45 a.m. blackout. The Three Kings, Cresent and Jupiter Bowl chairs were also closed for the day after they were cleared. Beck said all the terrain affected, except Jupiter, was accessed by other lifts. . At 2 p.m., the resort closed the King Con chair, leaving eight lifts running on backup power. The outage caused more than minor irritation at Deer Valley, where a fuel problem on the auxiliary engine of the Sterling Lift forced area workers to lower some 40 people from the chair before power was restored at 12:59 p.m. Area General Manager and Executive Vice President John Miller says the evacuation was routine. He said the Sterling Lift worked for about 30 minutes on backup power before the engine stopped. Some 70 people spent up to 40 minutes on the chair, including the 40 who were lowered. Miller said the people had their money refunded or were issued claim checks. The other Deer Valley lifts were all on backup power without a hitch, Miller said. He said no lift took longer than 11 minutes to switch to auxiliary power. Miller also said the power failure sparked the staff to assume some unusual roles. ' We had snowmaking people inside bussing the cafeteria, ' ' Miller said, "and marketing people were downstairs helping with the food also." v 6 The timing of the failure was decent enough to wait until lunch had been cooked, Miller said, and the several charcoal grills that were fired up added that mountain cook out flair that kept guests happy, he said. ParkWest was not affected by the outage. But Old Town still lingered in dark cold, as did some other sections of the city. As crews struggled with the burned equipment, people were beginning to cool off. Many of the city's stores closed in the pending creep of frosty air. v Alpha Beta had a backup power source to keep those computers ringing up the grub, but other areas were not so fortunate. According to some people staying in local all-electric condos, it took about two days to get room temperatures back to the comfort zone. - UP&L fully restored the power at 5:50 p.m., a company spokesman said. Darcy White said the disruption was "probably" caused by arcing electricity that crossed two insulators on the Park Ave substation's 46,000 volt feeder line. . Witnesses and UP&L crews did not want to immediately go near the area because of the electrical fireworks. White said the violent nature of the eruption damaged more equipment than a normal arc-over might. He said the electricity most likely moved across lines because of salt that deposited on the equipment and was wetted by new snow. White said arc-over problems' are common at this time of the year. What isn't common, he said, was the speed with which crews were able to restore power. "That is normally a two-day job in gooci weather," White said. "The crews we sent were able to replace the parts in about five hours, which is remarkable. They deserve a pat on the back." Perhaps Park City residents and visitors who didn't freeze in Monday's near zero evening temperatures would agree. "I had a fire going and it was still cold," one man said while enjoving a drink at a candlelit local club. As for the condo re-heating situation, White said it is common for most electric system take longer to re-heat large areas after they lose their constant temperature, especially high-ceiling rooms. I.. V t . m v V j m - V .,: i- p. r I V i i i l S i 1 f ' I |