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DENTON – A combination of single-digit temperatures and a mishap at the Delmarva Power’s substation on Camp Road played havoc with morning routines this morning, Jan. 23, in the Denton area, and as far as Ridgely and Preston.
The combination of events caused a cascade of other issues, all of which were resolved by early afternoon.
Unusually low temperatures as residents were starting their morning routines strained the power grid and Choptank Electric Cooperative’s ability to keep up, causing power brownouts, starting about 5 a.m., according to Wayne Daubach, manager of regional operations in Denton. He said his truck registered four degrees.
About an hour later, a crane operating at the nearly 16-acre Delmarva Power substation bumped into a wire, igniting a fire.
“That’s when it all just snowballed from there,” Daubach said.
As firefighters responded to the substation, Denton police officers directed traffic.
Choptank Electric Cooperative’s electric is transmitted through the substation. Because of the accident, Choptank lost three of its substations, according to Katie Luckett, director of marketing and communications.
“We were able to back-feed a lot of our power, essentially rerouting it so it didn't have to go through their substation that was down,” and bringing it in from other Choptank substations for the emergency, Luckett said.
“We relied on our outer areas that were able to give us a little bit of power without affecting the existing people in that area,” Daubach said.
“But unfortunately, due to the cold temperatures this morning, we already were facing a very high load of power, so that really limits where we can reroute that power,” he said.
By 9 a.m. 2,400 Choptank members had lost power. The Choptank Electric Cooperative’s Facebook page encouraged members to “only use essential appliances and electricity to make restoration faster.”
“We were able to restore a couple hundred members every few minutes, just by slowly rerouting. And we were being very cautious that we didn't back-feed the power too quickly to where we would max out load for certain areas,” Luckett said.
Daubach said many members’ homes lose heat, hot water and electric during an outage, and those systems “all require huge amounts of inputs. So that's why we go very slow during these cold temperatures to bring everybody up, so that the people that are on stay on, and we don't have to start over due to a trip, or something like that, in the middle.”
While much of the work could be done from Denton-based Choptank Electric’s system control, a dozen linemen “were out in the substation (and other areas) physically opening and closing different switches” all morning, Luckett said. Three linemen from other districts were called in to lend a hand.
“It was a big team effort,” Daubach said. “Everybody did good, even engineering.”
By 1:45 p.m. all members’ power had been restored.
“We've had a lot of very grateful members who are appreciative of the work that our linemen are doing in the cold weather, and we thank them for their patience,” Luckett said.
“We know it's never easy to not have power, especially during the cold days, but we were doing everything as efficiently as we could, and the main concern was the safety of our linemen and the Demarva Power linemen, to make sure we were in constant communication with their team.”
“All week, we had been really expressing to our members to try to cut back on their use from 6 to 9 a.m. because that's when the load is really high with the cold temperatures,” Luckett said. “So, it would have been probably not as lengthy of an outage for our members had it not been so cold and such a high load.”
Delmarva Power’s customers lost power, as well.
Delmarva Power spokesman Brian Ahrens emailed a statement: “This morning, a third-party contractor came in contact with our infrastructure, which initially impacted more than 1,100 customers. Due to the extent of the repairs, we were able to restore 850 customers in just over two hours, with the remaining 300 customers restored two hours later, just before 1 p.m.”
“We appreciate our customers’ and the Denton community’s patience as our crews worked safely and as quickly as possible to restore service to all impacted customers,” the statement concluded.
At Denton Plaza, firefighters responded to reports of odors caused by heating and air conditioning units malfunctioning as a result of the low power issues.
“That was causing even more call-ins, more chaos,” Denton Town Administrator Scott Getchell said. “But they weren't fires.”
Getchell said several town pump stations switched over to generator power, and “all things performed as they were supposed to.”
“Our guys chasing the water and wastewater infrastructure with generators and making sure that they were doing what they're supposed to do – that was a good effort. That's confirmation that all that we put into these things paid off today,” Getchell said. “We had no environmental impact. That's a wonderful thing.”
The town of Denton invited those experiencing a power failure to stay warm at the Wharves of Choptank Visitor & Heritage Center. Likewise, Caroline County Recreation and Parks opened the Fretterd Community Center in Denton for those seeking a warm refuge.
Recreation and Parks Director Jamie Beechey said three people showed up at the Fretterd Center. While the power went out momentarily, a generator kicked on to supply power to the center. “I was pretty happy about it, because we don't, obviously, use it very often,” Beechey said.
Denton Police Chief George Bacorn praised Denton Volunteer Fire Company members, his officers and deputies with the Caroline County Sheriff’s Office for pitching in and working together.
While Denton’s officers were directing traffic at the substation, the power outage caused the Blue Crab Car Wash on 5th Avenue to stop operating with a vehicle still inside the facility.
“There were a couple of Caroline County Sheriff's deputies that happened to be coming through the area at the time, and they stopped and lifted the door manually and got her out,” Bacorn said.
“And, of course, also (Denton’s) public works department stepped up, because they did put a stop sign out at one of our town-owned lights, just so people would stop,” he said. That sign was set up at the Walmart entrance on Legion Road.
Bacorn said his department sent out a reminder that it is the law to treat intersections with offline traffic lights as a four-way stop.
“It was kind of hectic there for a few hours, but it was not overwhelming,” Bacorn said. “And we went out, and we accomplished the mission, which was trying to keep everybody as safe as possible.”
