Wreck and weather keep Alabama Power busy

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Days of wind and rain left Alabama Power busy Tuesday night and into Wednesday as several separate incidents left residents without power in parts of Selma and Valley Grande.

“It was a busy night,” Alabama Power spokeswoman Jan Ellis said.

The night started with a problem of a broken limb on a power line which, according to Ellis, caused some equipment failure at a substation.

Email newsletter signup

The problem left most of Valley Grande in the dark for up to 180 minutes.

“The maximum was three hours,” Ellis said. “Probably 550 customers were out of power.”

Later, at about 10:50 p.m., a primary wire on Lawrence Street came down and took out a breaker at a substation.

From the bridge, power was out for three blocks down Broad Street and for about another three blocks in both directions on Water Ave.

“It was just from the wind, rain and lightning.” Ellis said.

At about the same time, Alabama Power officials were called to down live wires at a burning abandoned home on Atlee Street in Selmont.

Finally, this morning at about 5 a.m., there was a wreck on Dallas Avenue that blocked traffic for several hours and took out a power pole.

“A car hit that pole on Dallas,” Ellis said. “It took until about noon to fix it.”