Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
QCS Managing Editor
Transmission line troubles caused widespread power outages early Tuesday in four eastern New Mexico counties, including Quay, Curry, San Miguel and Guadalupe counties, according to Farmers Electric Cooperative and Xcel Energy sources.
Xcel Energy's 3,246 customers in Tucumcari lost power from 12:22 a.m. to 4:09 a.m. today, due to storm damage along the the transmission line that feeds Tucumcari from Clovis, according to Wes Reeves, spokesman for Xcel.
Xcel crews repaired the damage, restoring power, Reeves said.
Meanwhile, Farmers Electric Cooperative customers in the Santa Rosa, rural areas near Tucumcari, San Jon, Logan, Grady and Conchas Dam experienced power outages starting at 12:40 a.m. Tuesday, a Farmers Electric news release said.
The Farmers Coop news release said the outages were caused by failure on the 15-kilovolt transmission line that feeds power into the Tucumcari Interchange.
Customers in rural Tucumcari and Santa Rosa had power restored by 2:30 a.m., the Farmers release said. The rest of the affected customers were back in service at 3:45 a.m. today.
Reeves said an attempt to remote-start Xcel's new generating plant in Tucumcari, which was designed to provide power to Tucumcari customers in case of long outages on the transmission line, Tuesday morning was unsuccessful.
Since the line repair would be completed in a reasonable time, however, he said, Xcel decided to abandon the startup effort.
Xcel is still trying to learn why the restart did not succeed, Reeves said.
