Lightning Strike Causes Major Power Outage in Lafayette Parish

LAFAYETTE PARISH (KPEL) — Friday afternoon, SLEMCO reported that 12,000 customers were without power due to a transmission outage.

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Not only were thousands of customers without power but SLEMCO's website and phone lines were also affected.

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What Caused the Lafayette Parish Power Outage?

Around 1 pm, SLEMCO crews began patrolling the affected transmission line that powers their Neville and Mouton substations and discovered lightning had struck the lightning arrestor, which ultimately did its job, even though customers lost power.

Lightning struck the transmission line very near one of the substations in a direct strike. Instead of damaging the equipment in the substation, the lightning arrestor took the hit, performing exactly as it is supposed to

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How Lightning Arrestors Prevented Bigger Damage

SLEMCO notes that they understand any power outage is an inconvenience and that lightning arrestors prevent major damage to sensitive equipment, which would create a longer-lasting power outage.

Though any outage is a royal pain, especially in the heat, lightning arrestors reduce the amount of time needed to restore power because substation equipment is left untouched and undamaged

They thank the community for communicating important information so that they can return power to everyone as quickly as possible.

The more information we have to determine outage causes, the quicker we can get the power back on, because we don’t like outages any more than you do. Have a great weekend, everyone. Thanks for your patience and support.

According to the power outage map, it looks like everyone affected has power again.

See the outage map here.