The city of Brainerd was without power for about a half-hour Monday afternoon following an equipment failure at the city's main substation.
Just before 4 p.m., power went out in all of Brainerd and a small portion of Baxter near the Highway 371 intersections with Highway 210 and Excelsior Road. Power was restored at about 4:30 p.m.
Tom Phelps, Brainerd Public Utilities superintendent, said the outage was the result of an electric signal relay failure at the city's main substation on Crow Wing County Road 117 and Oakridge Road southeast of Brainerd, near the Crow Wing County Fairgrounds.
Phelps said the relay that failed was older and is one of a number of pieces of equipment being replaced as part of an $11 million upgrade at the substation. Crews were able to restore power by bypassing the relay, he said.
The outage caused minor traffic congestion at major intersections in Brainerd as stoplights became four-way stops with the loss of power.
MATT ERICKSON may be reached at matt.erickson@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5857.
To Subscribe to the Brainerd Dispatch, Click Here.
Note: Comments are not edited and don't represent the views of The Brainerd Dispatch. Please read our posting rules in the terms of service policy. To report a post that may be inappropriate, click the triangle alert icon.
