Approximately 370 customers lost electricity due to two power outages that occurred Monday night on the 3900 block of Spruce Street and some surrounding blocks on Delancey and Pine streets.
All power from the first outage was restored by approximately midnight, according to PECO Energy Company spokesperson Fred Maher. The outage had begun at about 10:30 p.m. However, the electricity went out again at 1:30 a.m., according to PECO spokesperson Ben Armstrong, until approximately 3:00 a.m.
Maher said that the outage was caused by issues related to some of their underground equipment. According to Maher, the outage may be related to the one which took place on March 12, during which power went out from 2:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. on the 3700 block of Spruce Street.
“It looks like they might be related, but we’re struggling to figure out the cause,” Maher said. He suggested that the heavy rain Philadelphia received on Monday may have contributed to the power outages.
Armstrong said that figuring out the cause involves dividing the electricity circuit in the way the power flows to isolate the issue.
Thus far, though, these efforts have not found the problem, according to Armstrong.
A similar number of PECO customers lost power in all cases. In Monday night’s incidents, 368 people were without electricity, while 359 went without it in last week’s outage. Additionally, both occurred in a similar geographic zone within two blocks of each other on Spruce Street.
According to Armstrong, PECO’s system is “designed to self-heal,” which happened in both instances Monday night.
Neither Maher nor Armstrong were able to say whether any University buildings lost electricity in either outage.
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