A Department of Public Utilities lineman’s hands measure outputs from each phase while wearing protective safety gear during the power outage on North Mesa Tuesday afternoon. Courtesy/DPU

Power was interrupted to North Mesa beginning at 11:18 a.m. Tuesday when a contractor digging with a high pressure hose and vacuum exposed and breached one wire of three phase direct bury electric lines on the east end of North Mesa, according to officials at the Department of Public Utilities (DPU.)

“About 250 customers were affected, initially,” said DPU’s associate engineer for electric distribution Steve Marez.

To safely work on the damaged underground line, DPU’s electric linemen brought power down to all three phases of underground cable, while inspection and repair work occurred in the trenched area,
which increased the number of North Mesa customers affected from 250 to approximately 750.

Power outage status and notifications were provided to inquiring customers by 311 Customer Care Center staff and to online customers and cell phones via DPU’s Facebook and Twitter presence at www.facebook.com/DPU1968 and twitter.com/#!/LADPU.

Power was restored to the area at 4:30 p.m.

Another apparently unrelated power outage, affecting six homes on Tsankawi and the La Mesa mobile home park occurred at about 6 p.m. when a different underground line fault was isolated and repaired.

Power was restored by approximately 7:30 p.m. for that outage.