Utility-pole fireball preceded outage
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Shutdown came at busy time for downtown restaurants, galleries
2/23/2008 - 2/24/08
Hal Widener says an unusual light that reflected off a wall in his southeast Santa Fe home as he watched television on Friday evening was his first clue that something was amiss.When he looked outside to see the source of the light, he saw a ball of fire atop an electric utility pole behind a neighbor's house across the street. He called 911.
A Public Service Company of New Mexico spokesman on Saturday said he couldn't verify that the fire Widener witnessed caused the power outage that affected some 10,000 Santa Fe customers for an hour or more. But the time and location of the fire coincides with details PNM has provided about the blackout.
"It was quite a fireball," Widener said. "It probably grew to 6 or 8 feet tall. It was blinding to look at."
PNM spokesman Jeff Buell said the outage started after a switch caught fire on a 46-kilovolt transmission line that carries electricity to several Santa Fe substations.
"That's why it was such a widespread outage," explained Buell, who on Saturday still didn't know the fire's cause.
Santa Fe's regional emergency dispatch center got the call at 6:49 p.m. Friday from Widener's home on Camino Monte Feliz, where Widener said the electricity stayed on.
The widespread blackout started at 7:17 p.m., Buell said. Lights flickered, dimmed and went black in an area ranging from Tesuque on the north, through downtown Santa Fe and southeast to Seton Village Road.
The shutdown came at a busy time for many restaurants, galleries and other businesses. "We lost tons of money," said Daniela Carr, general manager of Ore House on the Plaza.
Backup systems kept exhaust fans running in the Ore House kitchen, Carr said, and cooks finished preparing meals as best they could.
When the lights first dimmed, she was a few blocks away on Canyon Road, where 21 businesses were among 34 area galleries hosting the 11th Annual Edible Art Tour.
After racing back to her post at the Ore House, Carr oversaw efforts to finish serving dinner and close the restaurant by flashlight, candlelight and the glow of battery-powered emergency lighting.
Her staff lined a stairwell with candles to safely get customers out of the upstairs eatery. They got out an otherwise obsolete credit-card imprinter to take payments. The restaurant turned away a party of 25 guests that had just arrived.
Bartenders couldn't open computer-controlled cash drawers. With details of the daily money count buried in computer records, staff dumped the latest receipts in a bag and waited until the next day to count the night's earnings.
Carr estimated the outage cost the Ore House $4,000 or $5,000 in business. Staff went home early, losing a good part of a weekend night's tips.
Assistant manager Andrew Garcia stayed on Canyon Road, where he was serving guests at Ventana Fine Art. Tortilla soup with crema de avacado, and crab and shrimp cakes with a shrimp chipotle sauce were already warming over alcohol flames, so Garcia kept serving. Guests kept arriving.
"It was totally blackout," Garcia said. "All that was lit was a few farolitos."
Electricity was restored to most of the 10,000 affected homes and businesses by 8:18 p.m., and to the final 600 customers by 9:01 p.m., Buell said.
PNM's first response to the outage was to re-route electricity through other lines, Buell said. Comparatively lower electric usage in the wintertime, he said, allowed crews greater flexibility to route electricity around the damaged transmission line.
Buell said crews were still completing repairs on the damaged switch around 7 p.m. Saturday.
Widener said PNM workers who arrived in his neighborhood after he first reported the fire on Friday evening first went to a nearby substation. On Saturday, he saw a crew working on the pole where he had spotted the fire. He recognized the pole as part of a transmission line because the line runs up a mountain through a swath cleared of trees, while distribution lines in his area are buried underground.
Contact David Collins at 986-3064 or dcollins@sfnewmexican.com.