Slinger residents experienced village-wide power outage



SLINGER (WITI) -- Imagine you have kids from home from school because of the frigid weather -- and you have no power; no heat. That was the case on Tuesday, January 28th for about 2,400 utility customers in Slinger.

The power is on now. But shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday, customers started noticing the problem.

"I was more concerned that maybe it was just my house verses you know, an issue within the village," said Candi Martin, a homeowner. "So once I realized it was a whole village issue, I wasn't nearly as concerned."

Calls from residents told officials it was a village-wide problem. Slinger has its own utilities company maintained by Hartford Utilities.

Village Engineer Jim Haggerty says it was a switch gear failure. But utility crews knew just where the problem was thanks to the keen eyes of a patrolling officer.

"Probably since there was a failure inside, looked a little grey or black in color, probably a little bit like a short circuit," said Haggerty.

The fix was diverting power to different locations. Haggerty says it's no uncommon for this to happen. But he says it only happens once or maybe twice a year.