This past Saturday, 1300 Mackinac Island customers of Edison Sault Electric Company began experiencing major intermittent electric power outages as 5 of the 7 submarine cables running between the mainland at St. Ignace and Mackinac Island experienced a failure of some sort. A minimum of three cables are needed in order to serve the Island.

Edison Sault mobilized a work force early Saturday which numbered a dozen employees in order to begin locating and repairing the problem or problems. Also, outside contractor cable problem locators arrived from Traverse City and Milwaukee Monday evening. The manufacturer of the cable was also contacted and has technical personnel on the Island. Edison Sault has also mobilized a tug and barge contractor in Cheboygan in case cables need to be raised from the lake floor in order to be spliced.

By late Tuesday afternoon (July 25), several major cable repairs had been accomplished and tested and partial power was restored during the early evening to several major portions of the Island. During the evening, other major cable problems surfaced and the Island again experienced a blackout. This morning, it is anticipated that the cable technician from the manufacturer will use his expertise on the cables, along with the local knowledge of the system by the Edison Sault personnel, to continue his detailed review of what needs to get done in order to restore power as soon as possible. Edison Sault has over a dozen employees on site along with outside experts from both Milwaukee and the manufacturer of the cable. Other outside resources may also need to be secured in order to resolve the problem.

Edison Sault officials met with local leaders and residents at a Town Hall meeting early this afternoon to try and apprise the local residents of efforts to date and what plans are unfolding to restore power as soon as possible. The crews of Edison Sault, along with outside contractor expertise, have located the majority of the problems and currently continue their work on making repairs to the cables on the Mackinac Island shoreline. There currently are no time estimates available as to when these repairs will be completed although work is expected to continue around the clock if necessary. As a further precaution, Edison Sault officials, with the support of Mackinac Island political leaders, have requested the immediate mobilization of six 1.8MW barged portable generators from the Consumers Power system in Lower Michigan. Additional transformers which would be hooked into the portable generators are also enroute from Pennsylvannia and are expected to arrive in St. Ignace tommorrow.

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Last modified: August 16, 2002