HAZEL GREEN, Ala. — A substation equipment problem left roughly 13,000 Huntsville Utilities customers in and around Hazel Green, Ala., in the dark for close to an hour on Election Day, including four polling places where ballots were still being cast.
The lights went out at several spots in the county at about 1:15 p.m. Tuesday, with the Hazel Green area hit hardest. Huntsville Utilities traced the trouble to equipment at the substation that takes in the TVA feed serving that part of the county.
Crews had power flowing again by about 2:04 p.m., the utility said.
The four polling sites inside the outage zone lost electricity for about 45 minutes. Their voting machines kept working on backup batteries, and county officials said the outage did not disrupt voting. Law enforcement officers went to each of the four sites to help voters while the power was off.
The first word of the problem came from the outage map Huntsville Utilities posts online, which showed service down at multiple locations within Madison County shortly after lunchtime. A spokesman for the utility later pinned the cause on an equipment issue at the substation rather than on weather or a damaged line. The utility has not said what specific piece of equipment failed or whether repairs are still needed there.
For voters, the timing could have been worse. Polls stayed open across the county all day, and with the machines on battery power, people who were in line at the four affected sites were able to keep voting while the building lights were off.
The outage came on a heavy day at the polls in Madison County. By about 10 p.m., with just over 99% of votes counted, county voters had chosen Democrat Brett Jones as their next sheriff over incumbent Republican Kevin Turner, 81,937 votes to 72,345.
Section: More Huntsville AL crime news
Filed under: Huntsville AL Public Safety News
