FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WOWO): Power will be out in downtown Fort Wayne Sunday, March 18 starting at 6 p.m. and lasting for up to three hours.
Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) is switching the connection from the existing 1920s-era substation to the adjacent state-of-the-art Melita substation. The transfer will require a power outage for much of the downtown area.
The date and time were chosen after speaking with city public safety officials and reviewing the schedules for downtown events and churches.
Measures have been put in place to ensure the traffic safety during the outage. Officers from the Fort Wayne Police Department will be directing traffic for the busiest intersections that will be affected and stop signs will be placed at the others.
The switch of substations is part of I&M’s project to enhance the reliability and safety of service to the downtown Fort Wayne. For the past two years, I&M has been rebuilding the downtown Fort Wayne underground infrastructure, replacing aging cables, re-routing the line configuration, adding underground vaults, and adding monitoring devices to detect any potential problems before they occur.
With the transfer, energy for the area will be provided via a modern, high-tech substation that can accommodate current demands plus future growth.
1 comment
Why not do this in the middle of the night? Kind of seems strange to do this in the early evening. I guess IMF is too cheap to pay employees overnight pay but instead inconvenience the entire downtown area, not too mention the cost that Fort Wayne will incur for extra police to direct traffic lights. STUPID STUPID STUPID