LMU Issues Statement On Wednesday Night Power Outage

Homes and businesses in Greendale and Lawrenceburg were affected.

(Lawrenceburg, Ind.) - Last night, June 19, 2019, Lawrenceburg Municipal Utilities experienced system wide outages that were caused by an electrical failure issue, that occurred on Duke Energy’s 138kV Transmission Line, feeding both Lawrenceburg & Greendale. 

Firstly–nothing LMU could have done could have prevented the outage from occurring. This outage was on the greater transmission system and not LMU’s Distribution System. Regardless of where the problem took place, and due to the nature of the outage (one of the three legs of our three phase system feeding our community, was missing) Lawrenceburg Municipal Utilities customers experienced wide spread single phasing issues. The results of this, to name just a few things were: Blown and/or tripped breakers, burnt contacts and issues related to three phase motors, flickering lights and/or fluctuating voltage at your home or business, smoke smell or odor within your home or business, and various other voltage related issues.

Because of the single phasing issues and out of an abundance of concern for our own utility system as well as our customer owned equipment, the decision was made to open our substation breakers and shut down our distribution system. Once Duke Energy was able to reroute the feed to our perspective delivery points, LMU was able to re-energize our substations and therefore our customers. 

Despite our substations being re-energized, LMU crews had to work through the night refusing cutouts, repairing jumpers and turning on breakers in customers homes who were unsure what to do. We finished that work around 3:00 AM on the 20th (today) 

We thank our customers for their patience during this time and appreciate the many responses we had on social media on what areas were out and what areas had been restored. This assisted us tremendously in getting all of you back on and out of harms way.

Though we have already officially requested a official explanation from Duke Energy about the outage in question, it is our belief that [Duke] will have to submit a NERC compliance report within 180 days for this occurrence/outage–LMU will be monitoring those reports and will provide a follow up with a second press release on this subject.

Lastly, according to Duke’s dispatch, LMU will not be experiencing any additional outages related to the issues of June 19, 2019.