Is there a ghost in power lines?

Those who have lived in the county very long are accustomed to brief power outages, so a short blackout in several areas Jan. 10 caused only annoyance as people scurried to re-boot computers and reset alarm clocks.

Westar communication representative Kevin Gregg said Florence and Marion were the areas primarily affected by the stoppage of power flowing through a 115kv transmission line.

It’s anybody’s guess, however, why the power went out.

“At this point, we haven’t found a cause for it,” Gregg said Friday. “It kicked off for about 90 seconds and came back on and held.”

Workers tried to diagnose the problem, but when none was readily apparent, the power was switched back on.

“We reconnected it and it held,” Gregg said.

While a cause was still under investigation, Gregg wasn’t certain one would ever be found.

“It can be a needle in a haystack situation,” he said.