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‘Lightning arrester’ caused power outage to thousands of Jacksonville homes, JEA says

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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Thousands of homes were reportedly without power Friday night, according to JEA.

Its online outage map showed the outage affected homes in Mandarin, Loretto, Greenland and Bartram, among other areas.

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At 10 p.m., about 9,800 customers were affected, but that number increased to 13,300 just before 10:30 p.m.

Power was originally estimated to be restored by 11 p.m. The utility’s outage map showed power was fully restored shortly after.

An email to customers Saturday explained that the outage was caused by a lightning arrester at a Southside substation. That’s a device used on electric power transmission and telecommunication systems to protect the insulation and conductors of the system from the damaging effects of lightning.

The issue impacted transmission lines at that facility that deliver power to customers on the Southside, Mandarin and portions of northern St. Johns County, JEA said.

“Our crews responded to restore power as quickly as possible to you. Most customers saw power return within 15 minutes,” JEA explained. “While we consider this an isolated situation, our crews will continue to address its root cause.”

You can report an outage and receive restoration updates by text message. Register by texting REG to MyJEA (69532), then text OUT to MyJEA during an outage. Be sure to have your account number handy when registering. You can also report power and water outages at jea.com/outage or call (904) 665-6000.

Click here for a look at the outage map.


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