Broken pole causes power outage

A power pole broke outside Havelock Thursday morning, disconnecting a main Progress Energy transmission line and putting 18,000 people in Craven and Carteret counties in the dark.

The outage happened at 2:30 a.m., and crews needed until 10:50 a.m. to restore power to all customers, officials said.

The outage affected 7,150 Progress Energy customers in Carteret County, but since the line feeds the main service area for Carteret-Craven Electric Cooperative, about 11,200 of its customers also lost power.

The outage stretched from Havelock, Cherry Branch and the Harlowe communities to as far as Otway, Harkers Island and Atlantic in Down East Carteret County, according to a release from Carteret-Craven Electric.

Drew Elliot, spokesman for Progress Energy, said the pole, located off Sunset Boulevard in Greenfield Heights, was in a swampy area that hampered the ability of crews to correct the problem.

Lights were out in Havelock east of the intersection of Main Street and Fontana Boulevard, according to Diane Miller, Havelock city spokeswoman. She said emergency services operated on generators and were running normally.

Traffic was reportedly backed up on Fontana Boulevard and traffic was heavy approaching the Cherry Point main gate during rush hour Thursday morning.

The outage also affected Havelock Middle, Elementary and High schools as well as Roger Bell Elementary School. Schools opened on time and prepared for a full day, with power being restored between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. to allow lunch preparation to begin.

The outage only briefly affected Cherry Point and did not cause any operational problems, according to Cpl. Lisa Strickland with the Cherry Point Public Affairs Office.

Carteret-Craven Electric Cooperative crews worked to re-route power from other substations to bring power back to the Havelock area, according to a release.

John Brooks, a Progress Energy spokesman, said the company restores power to customers in segments as it is able to switch them to other lines.

“The last groups to be restored are typically those closest to the outage,” he said. “Work continues on replacing the pole but we do not anticipate further interruptions as a result.”

He said crews did their best to restore power quickly, but the pole proved difficult to access and the outage was large.

“We did have to take track equipment into the area to access the pole,” he said. “Part of the time it took was due to the location of the outage and the number of people served by this particular line. Crews worked as quickly as they could.”

This was the second major power outage for Havelock in the last three days. On Tuesday, 1,315 customers lost power in western Havelock after a car struck a utility pole in front of Navy Federal Credit Union.

Havelock News reporter Drew C. Wilson and Freedom ENC reporter Sue Book contributed to this story.