Nature gets the blame for recent outages

Recent outages in the Morgan City utility system are nothing out of the ordinary, just a byproduct of nature, City Utilities Director Bill Cefalu said Tuesday.
He said a downed tree and lightning were the cause of some recent outages, while Saturday and Monday, the same breaker tripped at the La. 70 Substation that energizes Elliot Subdivision.
In addition to trees and lightning, wildlife can cause issues for the city’s utility system, Cefalu said. He said all of these issues are common among utility providers.
“It’s nothing that we have any control over,” Cefalu said. “I can’t control a tree branch breaking off in the middle of the night. I can’t control a lightning strike, and then I can’t control the squirrels and the pigeons. We just handle problems as they come and address them.”
He said the city’s utility system has performed well for a while.
“Those two breakers tripping was the first incident we had on that circuit (in) probably over a year,” Cefalu said of the La. 70 Substation.
He said most of the wildlife issues occur in the city’s downtown circuit, but he said lately, they haven’t had breakers trip due to wildlife.
Lightning, one of the factors of outages, occurs more during the summer, Cefalu said.
“When the system is hot and loaded more, it’s more sensitive, but we have a lot of times in the winter we get storms, lightning,” he said. “Again, you can’t put your finger on it.”
Cefalu said it’s simply a matter of fixing what breaks and moving forward.
“We’re prepared to fix anything that we have a problem with,” he said. “That’s how this business goes.”