Whitfield on Wellsville outage: " Mother Nature dealt us a blow"

Violent thunderstorms rolled over Wellsville Monday afternoon. The result was a 14+ hour power outage in the village. The village went dark at 5:39 p.m. Monday, thanks to a combination of problems, according to Bill Whitfield, the Director of Public Works.
Whitfield explained the timeline of events:

• At 5:39p.m., a thunderstorm caused damage to a National Grid feeder line on Wellsville's west side. It caused a power outage for the entire village, impacting between 4,500-5,000 customers.
• National Grid wants to reroute power from the east, but first had to evaluate its systems, which took hits to the east as well.
• At 12:30 a.m., the village was about to be re-energized, when a 115 kV lightning arrestor failed at the Niles Hill substation. That facility had also taken a direct hit. Whitfield said the arrestor "blew."
• The village of Arcade responded to help Wellsville with a new arrestor.
• At 6 a.m., equipment had been installed, but National Grid had to evaluate the system.
• At 7:41 a.m., National Grid re-energized the system and power was restored.

Whitfield said his crews worked nonstop through the night. The DPW also responded to a number of tree and limbs that came crashing down during the storm. Limited street flooding was also reported.

According to the National Weather Service, thunderstorms will develop ahead of a cold front this afternoon. There will be a marginal risk that some of the storms will become strong to severe into the evening hours. The greatest threat with these storms will be damaging wind gusts.