RPU reveal cause of power outage that impacted thousands

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – A power outage that caused blackouts in parts of Rochester now has a cause.

Sunday night, the Med City’s southwest, southeast, and northeast areas experienced a power outage lasting close to two hours. Around the same time, a video circulated online seeming to show a fireball at the power substation behind Mayo Field.

Neil Stiller, a Rochester Public Utilities official, told KTTC that night’s high winds caused a nearby pine tree branch to break off, the branch ultimately blew into the power line. This, Stiller said, caused the fireball many viewed online.

RPU received reports from its substation equipment, Stiller explained, that several circuit breakers were opened. There were also calls from the public alerting RPU to the issue. This, he said, enabled the department to send workers out and investigate.

“The tree limb had burned clearly,” Stiller told KTTC via Zoom, “We reset the equipment and re-energized the system…piece by piece…[and] got people’s lights back on pretty quickly.”

Stiller estimated around 5,000 people were impacted by Sunday’s power outage. He credited the public’s information as helping with the crew’s response time.

When asked about what lessons were learned from the outage, Stiller said increasing awareness in RPU around the trees in that area is key to ensuring a similar situation doesn’t happen.

“RPU invests a great deal of effort and cost in maintaining a good, wide-open corridor around our lines,” he said, “In this case, we found another one where that high wind was blowing trees around a lot and it impacted our line.”

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