Buckhannon goes dark during ‘planned’ power outage Tuesday

BUCKHANNON — Much of the City of Buckhannon went dark suddenly just after 5 p.m. Tuesday.

A notice sent to some customers by Mon Power late Tuesday afternoon said that “there will be a planned power outage by Mon Power to upgrade facilities. The outage will affect customers in the vicinity of Buckhannon, who will experience a service interruption from approximately 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.”

The late notice sent residents scrambling. Businesses announced they were closing. Drivers navigated slowly through stoplight outages.

Steve Wykoff, director of the Upshur County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, told My Buckhannon, “First Energy is replacing some equipment at the substation by Sheetz. They have to drop a couple of circuits in order to do it safely.”

After about one hour and 15 minutes, power was restored.

The outage came just as the My Buckhannon team was preparing Wednesday’s edition, so please excuse our truncated story list. We’ll have more information — and hopefully a comment from Mon Power — tomorrow!

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