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Video shows power line sparking in Richmond: ‘Call 911’

Posted at 12:05 AM, Jan 08, 2018
and last updated 2018-01-08 00:05:00-05

RICHMOND, Va. – More than 17,000 people were without power Sunday morning as Dominion Energy crews worked to restore power to customers across Metro Richmond.

The low temperature Sunday morning at Richmond International Airport dropped to -3°, shattering the old record of 10° from 2014.

As of 6 p.m. that number has dropped to 3500 and just over 2000 customers were without power as of 11 p.m.

A Richmond man captured video of a power line sparking in Richmond Sunday afternoon right before he lost power.

It happened near Monument and Boulevard in the Museum District around 3:15 p.m.

“Hey, call 911. I’m not kidding,” a man can be heard saying in the video.

A retired utilities company worker who saw the video said it appeared that a bundled secondary cable overheated.

“The plastic insulation melts allowing the adjacent conductors to short (arc) together,” he said. “Normally, there are no fuses or circuit breakers on secondary circuits, so they continue to arc until the cable fails.”

Dominion Energy officials confirmed the secondary cable in the powerline failed.

Crews were still working to fix the outage as of 11 p.m. There has been no word from officials on what caused the line to fail.

An estimate on the power company’s website indicated that power should be restored between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday.

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