The strong winds that blew across Gallup in spurts over the holiday weekend contributed to a massive power outage on Gallup’s west side, officials said.
City Electric Director Richard Matzke said city work crews simply had to clear power lines of debris and tree branches so that things could go smoothly.
“We did not have to replace equipment in this instance,” Matzke said. “Power was restored.”
At around 3:30 am on Dec. 24, the indoor and outdoor lights went out everywhere from McDonald’s West to past the Love’s Travel Stop. That distance covers several miles. The only residences and businesses that maintained power were those that had portable generators.
Matzke said tending to a broken light pole was one of the things city work crews did during the wind storm. But that wasn’t the actual cause of the outage, he said.
The city’s west end experienced a similar power outage about a month ago. In that instance, fuses related to a transformer blew out and were quickly replaced, Matzke said at the time.
Still, the electricity going out is something you don’t want to really ”see” too often, a west side resident said.
“It gets scary,” Robert Donaldson, 44, said. “Seems like they can do some kind of prevention to make it not happen again.”
By Bernie Dotson
Sun Correspondent
