ST. GEORGE – After power was knocked out in parts of Bloomington, SunRiver and elsewhere Tuesday afternoon, water in the city’s irrigation system started to back up and pour into the street.
Around 2 p.m., heavy equipment being used at a home construction site hit a high-voltage power line connected to one of Dixie Power’s substations, according to social media posts from Dixie Power officials.
Read more: Power restored in Bloomington, SunRiver, Littlefield
The outage affected the Bloomington, SunRiver and Littlefield, Arizona, areas before being restored by 3 p.m.
Prior to that, Dixie Power crews attempted to restore power, only for it to go down again a moment later.
The power outage affected the city of St. George’s wastewater treatment plant, which impacted the city’s irrigation system, said Rene Fleming, the city’s energy and water resources coordinator.
The outage caused a piece of equipment connected to the irrigation system in the area of Snead Circle to malfunction and send a “surge of water” through the system, Fleming said.
City work crews were sent to fix the malfunctioning equipment, she said.
Some Bloomington residents reported seeing water seep up through manholes in the area following the power outage.
No homes were impacted by the irrigation water backing up, Fleming said, and added no waste was involved.
St. George Editor-in-Chief Joyce Kuzmanic contributed to this story.
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A construction site in Bloomington where heavy equipment struck a high-voltage power line and resulted in an electrical power outage for areas serviced by Dixie Power, St. George, Utah, July 10, 2018 | Photo by Joyce Kuzmanic, St. George News
A construction site in Bloomington where heavy equipment struck a high-voltage power line and resulted in an electrical power outage for areas serviced by Dixie Power, St. George, Utah, July 10, 2018 | Photo by Joyce Kuzmanic, St. George News
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The phrase that must not be said: TREATED SEWAGE WATER.
Was this water leaving the sewage plant or arriving? Please say leaving.