Lewes hit with power outages
The Lewes Board of Public Works is still looking for the cause of a series of power outages in the city this week.
The outages happened on the evenings of June 23 and 24, leaving homes and businesses temporarily in the dark.
At the BPW’s regular monthly meeting June 25, BPW President Tom Panetta said there were four separate outages in 24 hours.
He said the first two lasted about an hour each. The others lasted about 15 minutes each.
Panetta addressed the situation at the start of the BPW meeting.
“We understand how disruptive this is to everyone, and it is not what we aspire to,” he said. “We know this is not what we expect you to accept. We have always received reliability awards for our electrical system. We are going to [investigate] what actually caused it.”
Panetta said the substation had been restored to normal condition and everything was being fed normally by the afternoon of June 25.
Earlier, BPW released a statement that said, “A specialized contractor has been brought in to assist with evaluating the system and identifying any necessary corrective actions.”
Panetta told the Cape Gazette the heat was not helping the situation, but did not directly link the extreme temperatures to the outages.
Kathy Edwards, who has lived on Kings Highway for 30 years, lost power two nights in a row. She was most upset by the fact that the BPW’s emergency hotline went to a recording, then cut off.
“Power comes and goes and accidents happen, but the emergency number should be more reliable,” Edwards said. “Are we, perhaps, going and fixing electricity in too many developments that our infrastructure has not caught up?”
Edwards said she eventually did get a response from BPW and from City Councilman Tim Ritzert.
Panetta said the BPW is aware of the issues with its call center and is addressing them now. He said the issue will be on the agenda at a future meeting.
“We understand we let everyone down, and we will work to make it better,” Panetta said.
A spokesman for Delmarva Power said they did not have any equipment problems or other issues that contributed to the Lewes outages.
Bill Shull has been covering Lewes for the Cape Gazette since 2023. He comes to the world of print journalism after 40 years in TV news. Bill has worked in his hometown of Philadelphia, as well as Atlanta and Washington, D.C. He came to Lewes in 2014 to help launch WRDE-TV. Bill served as WRDE’s news director for more than eight years, working in Lewes and Milton. He is a 1986 graduate of Penn State University. Bill is an avid aviation and wildlife photographer, and a big Penn State football, Eagles, Phillies and PGA Tour golf fan. Bill, his wife Jill and their rescue cat, Lucky, live in Rehoboth Beach.
