ALLENTOWN, Pa. - A fire at a PPL substation cut power to 30,000 Allentown residents early Monday, according to the city's CodeRED alert system, which sends emergency alerts to residents.
The issue has been resolved, officials said.
- Shortly after 8 a.m., the PPL Election Utilities crew de-energized a substation in Allentown due to a fire resulting from animal contact
- An alert was sent to inform the residents affected, including people in the areas of Center City and the 1st Ward
- ASD announced an early student dismissal due to the power outage
At 8:37 a.m., the alert said power was out to areas of Center City and the 1st Ward, and PPL crews were working to reroute power to get as many customers back online as possible. Many were back online about an hour later, but Allentown School District said it would dismiss early.
"Due to the prolonged power outage, we are aiming to dismiss students by 10:30 a.m. - we are working on transportation with First Student to get buses to schools as quickly as possible," a tweet from the district said.
Due to the early dismissal, the King of the Court basketball program is also canceled.
The city is keeping residents updated via its Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/AllentownPA/posts/pfbid02oRWYzzshuz3GPr75oEJ4xvWH693q8iaRQ2zqYbEzNXXMzGq21DxzLtg5QPvNjf4PlThe Facebook post urged residents moving through non-functioning traffic lights to treat the area as a 4-way stop.
"The incident impacted service to approximately 30,000 customers in the downtown Allentown area."
Jane George, the regional affairs director of PPL Election Utilities
Jane George, the regional affairs director of PPL Election Utilities, said the company decided to shut down a substation in downtown Allentown after 8 a.m. because of a fire in its electrical equipment caused by animal contact.
"There were no injuries," George said in an e-mail response. "The incident impacted service to approximately 30,000 customers in the downtown Allentown area."
As of 10:30 a.m., all outages have been resolved, according to George.