Power restored to Carlisle residents after failed substation causes 6 hour outage

UPDATE @ 2:45 a.m: Power has been restored to Carlisle residents after a substation failed, causing a nearly six hour outage.

Duke Energy crews worked on site to restore service to more than 3,900 affected customers.

UPDATE 5/15/2018 @ 1:50 a.m: Approximately 900 customers are still without power in Carlisle after a Duke substation failed Monday night, according to the outage map.

Duke Energy crews are still on site attempting to restore services to all customers, which has improved since the 3,900 residents that were without around 8:40 p.m.

Crews are continuing efforts to track down the cause of the substation explosion and fire.

UPDATE @ 10:45 p.m.: Duke Energy crews are hoping to restore electric service to the more than 3,900 customers in Carlisle about 12:30 or 1 a.m., spokeswoman Sally Thelen said.

Crews are continuing efforts to track down the cause of the substation explosion and fire.

Something caused the transformer in the substation to catch fire, which caused the outage, but we don't know what caused the fire, Thelen said.

UPDATE @ 10:05 p.m.:

"As soon as we heard the explosion, the power went out," said Carlisle resident Gary Koogle, who lives on Fairview Drive across from the failed Duke Energy substation.

Koogle said he was watching TV when he heard what sounded like a gun going off. He ran to the front window and saw parents and their children, who were at a baseball game, running toward the outfield and away from the substation.

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He told News Center 7's Sean Cudahy he could see a small fire on top of a piece of substation equipment.

"We weren't sure" what was going on, Koogle said. "It looked almost like a small campfire" atop the substation equipment.

INITIAL REPORT

Approximately 3,923 Duke Energy customers are without electric service tonight because a substation has failed or has exploded.

According to the utility's online outage page, the first reports about a power outage were made about 8:40 p.m. According to the online outage page, Duke officials are estimating that service could be restored sometime after 11 p.m.

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The map is indicating 1,784 outages throughout Chautauqua, and 2,139 outages in an area that stretches from Franklin Madison Road, south to Franklin Trenton Road.

A caller to our newsroom reported hearing a loud explosion near the Carlisle police station, 474 Fairview Drive.

News Center 7’s Sean Cudahy is headed to Carlisle and he’ll have a report at 11 p.m.

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