Damaged Powerline Created Downtown Cary Power Outage

Cary, NC – Homes and businesses across Downtown Cary came to a halt on Monday, April 15, 2019 after a downed power line shut off electricity for much of the area.

At around 2:45 PM on Monday, April 15, a pole fell and knocked down power lines near the intersection of W Chatham Street and S Dixon Avenue. This took out electricity around Downtown Cary, including not just homes and businesses but also streetlights. Duke Progress Energy crews started working on the line at around 3:15 PM. Meghan Miles, corporate communications for Duke Energy, said while crews were working on the power lines, the outage was isolated and power was redirected to customers from other sources.

Around some key intersections, such as Chatham Street and Academy Street, the Town of Cary distributed generators to keep the lights working and some others had police officers directing traffic. For all other intersections where lights were out, they were to be treated as four-way stops, and while this reporter personally saw several close calls from drivers who went right through without stopping or looking, there were no traffic accidents reported at Downtown Cary intersections.

At around 5 PM, the Town of Cary distributed generators to all of the eight intersections that lost power. The line was repaired and electricity was restored at around 9 PM.

Some Cary residents may have also seen pockets of power outages in the town on Monday morning. These were the results of Sunday night’s extreme weather when a tree fell onto a power line, and we are still looking into whether or not that storm also caused the pole to fall in Downtown Cary.

We will update this article as more information becomes available.

Story by Michael Papich. Photos by Hal Goodtree.