Electrical power was lost in much of Perry Saturday about 10:25 p.m. and was not restored until 12:15 a.m. Sunday. The cause of the outage is under investigation at this hour.
A caller from the Perry Health Care Center reported seeing fire in an electrical box near the facility about the time power was lost. Perry Volunteer Fire Department First Assistant Chief Brian Eiteman was on the scene in the 2600 block of Iowa Street shortly after the reported fire.
“This is a new box,” Eiteman said as he examined the scorched and dislodged cover of the switch-fuse pad, labeled 24.9 kilovolts. “Michel’s was working along here about three weeks ago and put all these new ones in,” he said.
Power was lost in the area west of 18th Street, north of Iowa Street and east of W. Sixth Street. The Perry Police Department and Perry Volunteer Fire Department provided traffic control at the intersections of First Avenue and Iowa Highway 141 and First and Willis avenues.
Alliant Energy crews arrived in Perry about 11:30 and set about seeking the cause of the system failure.
ThePerryNews.com will update this story as information becomes available.
Thanks for the story. As usual nothing on our local radio station about the outage. I was wondering what happened and how much of the city was dark. Again thanks for the current local news, not news from a week ago.
To tell the truth, I found the entire experience more pleasant than not. I walked home from the Pattee after 11 p.m., and I could see the starry sky. It has been several years since I’ve been far enough removed from city lights to enjoy a cloudless night without light pollution. After arriving home, I sat quietly in the dark. The only light was provided by a few cars passing outside, and they were few indeed. It was very peaceful without the contrivances of Man intruding upon the senses. I was happy and ready to sleep but became quite annoyed when the lights came back on. After a wee bit of grumbling along with a few choice, unprintable words, I reset my clock, turned off the lights and resigned myself to the unwanted impositions of the 21st century.