Two Power Outages Strike LG Area

More than 1,000 Fayette Electric Cooperative customers lost power after an 18-wheeler struck a power pole on the West side of La Grange Friday afternoon, Sept. 18.

Then on Sunday evening, Sept. 20, more than 800 FEC lost power when a tree fell on a power line in the Frisch Auf! Subdivision.

The two incidents affected many of the same customers, but they were not related.

According to a report from the La Grange Police Department, the accident that led to the first outage happened around 2:45 p.m. The report said 56-year-old Byron Keith Mansion of Pflugerville was driving a red 2018 Volvo truck-tractor pulling a box trailer. Mansion pulled the rig into the River Valley West Shopping Center, which contains La Grange Vision and H&R Block.

The accident report said the rig struck some wires and pulled down several power poles. FEC’s Catherine Poppe said the wire that the rig struck was a low-hanging communications line that did not belong to FEC. She said the communications line pulled down three poles supporting a power line belonging to FEC. The outage lasted until around 6:30 p.m.

“Our guys temporarily supported the line and will replace the poles this week,” Poppe said. “About 1,005 customers were out of power.”

On Sunday, tree limbs got tangled in an FEC line in a remote section of the Frisch Auf! Subdivision, which caused a fault and disrupted power to many of the same customers affected by Friday’s outage. Sunday’s outage began around 9 p.m.

“It was dark, and the guys had to walk the line to find the fault and get in there to repair it,” Poppe said.

Poppe said about 830 people were in the dark until workers restored power around 12:40 a.m.

Then on Tuesday, FEC customers in the Winedale and Shelby area lost power around noon after a cross arm broke and a line fell across FM 1457. FEC crews fixed the line and restored power shortly before 2 p.m.