Traffic lights went dark, businesses closed, and 9-1-1 operators struggled to keep up during a brief but widespread power outage in Johnson City on Monday night.
According to the Tennessee Valley Authority, the problem started at 5:04 p.m.
A circuit breaker at a large substation in Sullivan County failed and electricity overloaded a power line, TVA said.
TVA called the Johnson City Power Board and told them to reduce their load by 148 megawatts. In turn, JCPB switched off 10 of their 28 small substations (all of them in West and North Johnson City).
TVA called back at 6:06 p.m., told the power board everything was under control, and gave them permission to re-boot all small substations, TVA said.
JCPB restored electricity city-wide by 6:30 p.m.
Spokesman Robert White could not offer an exact number of homes impacted by Monday's outage.
TVA called the situation "very rare," and "a significant equipment failure."
White said it was the first such outage of his 26-year career.
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