Power outage affects thousands of customers near Hope

HOPE – Duke Energy and Bartholomew County REMC had nearly a combined 2,000 Hope-area homes and businesses without electricity for almost four hours Wednesday.

About 963 of Duke’s customers in the Hope area lost their power shortly after 8 a.m., spokesman Chip Orben said. Later in the morning, Bartholomew County REMC spokeswoman Marty Lasure said a little more than 1,000 of the homes and businesses the co-op serves in and around Hope were without power.

It’s still unknown how a single-phase transmission line fell in the vicinity of the substation located along County Road 600N, about a mile west of State Road 9, Orben said. The substation serves customers of both utilities, Lasure said.

After seeing a photograph of the damaged line, Lasure said she was surprised the problem was not with one of the larger main electrical cables that carries electricity in northeast Bartholomew County.

“It looks so minor,” Lasure said. “I don’t know how this little bitty line could have resulted in so many people losing their power.”

All electricity was restored to REMC homes and businesses, as well as many Duke customers by 12:03 p.m., Lasure said.

But Orben stated there were still some Duke customers who weren’t expected to get their power back until about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday.