IRON COUNTY — Relief may finally be in sight for the hundreds of customers in the Iron County communities of Parowan, Paragonah and Brian Head who have been without power since the early morning hours of Saturday.
According to Rocky Mountain Power officials, temporary generators have been installed to restore electricity, at least minimally, to homes and businesses in each community starting Sunday evening.
At least 2,000 customers, which includes connections to homes and businesses, have been affected by the outages, which were caused by a catastrophic equipment failure at the Parowan Valley substation at approximately 2 a.m. Saturday.
Read more: Roughly 2,000 customers without power in Iron County, Brian Head
Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Spencer Hall said crews have been working nonstop to take care of the problem.
“It’s hard to fix them on the fly,” he said. “It’s kind of like fixing an airplane while it’s in the air. But they’re working hard to get it replaced and they’ve had some trouble sourcing some of the parts, and that’s caused a little bit of a delay. We appreciate people’s patience.”
Hall said the fact that the problem occurred on “a hot holiday weekend” made it even more difficult for those affected.
“It’s a very frustrating time for (our customers) to have to deal with an outage. We understand that and we want folks to know we’re working hard to get a solution,” he said.
Crews were in the process of bringing in a mobile substation as a temporary solution, which Hall said was en route as of 7 p.m. Sunday.
“As soon as that’s up and running,” he said, “that’ll be in place and will power the communities until all the repairs are done.
“As soon as that third generator at Brian Head is up and running, the power will be back on and residents won’t notice a difference,” Hall added. “Crews will continue to work on the back end to get a permanent solution.”
In a public post on Facebook Sunday evening, Brian Head town officials reminded residents to refrain from using any major non-essential appliances or equipment until the power is fully restored and stabilized.
Parowan City officials also offered similar advice on their Facebook page Sunday evening, advising residents to be judicious in their power usage. The city’s announcement reads as follows:
There has been a temporary power restoration to some areas of town at this time. This will be temporary as we try to get power to all areas of town. We will be experiencing rolling blackouts in four-hour increments to provide power to other areas of town. Please use the minimal amount of power. We are still not at full capacity and running on a temporary solution. We hope to continue this until we are fully functional. If there is too much load on the temporary fix, the system will shut down again. PLEASE turn off all (air conditioning) units and non essential electrical outlets. This is extremely critical in being able to provide any power. Please be conscious of power usage so Rocky Mountain can continue to use the temporary solution until the substation is fixed.
To report an outage and/or to receive the latest updates from Rocky Mountain Power, follow the link to its online outage map, which is updated regularly, or text the word “OUT” to 759677.
Customers with home oxygen needs are asked to notify Lincare at 435-586-0106 and/or Intermountain Healthcare at 385-887-6000. Medical equipment assistance is available 24 hours a day until the power outage situation is resolved, officials said.
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