Every customer of West Point Water & Light will be without electricity for roughly five hours tonight while the Tennessee Valley Authority does maintenance work.
Dwight Prisock, superintendent for water and electric, said the outage is scheduled to take place between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. early Saturday. Approximately 3,850 customers will be affected and Prisock guessed that those specific electricity customers support about 10,000 people.
“TVA has to change out a pole on the main line feeding West Point at West Half Mile Street,” Prisock said in a release.
The pole that has to be replaced “cannot be easily changed out with the 46,000 volt supply on,” Prisock added. If crews were to try and replace the pole with the power on and “something happens,” Prisock fears it would take longer than the planned five hours to restore power.
Prisock said TVA actually estimates the outage will last less than five hours.
“They will restore power as soon as the work is completed,” he said.
The town has notified local businesses that are open 24 hours and also nursing homes who will be affected by the outage. Anyone who needs electricity for oxygen or other medical needs need to make necessary arrangements, Prisock said.
He added that many people inside West Point city limits get electricity from 4-County Electric Power Association. Those customers will not be affected.
The scheduled TVA maintenance work also includes two other poles being changed out Saturday night. That work will not require a power outage.
William Browning was managing editor for The Dispatch until June 2016.
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