Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Residents ticked off as power flicks off

Sick of resetting VCR clocks and microwaves, residents want the brief outages to end.

By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published August 12, 2005

Dunham Swift realized something was wrong when he kept finding his clocks a few minutes behind.

"I wake up every morning and I have to restart my microwave, clocks, anything that doesn't have a battery in it," he said. "It's very aggravating."

All over Sun City Center, people have been experiencing brief electricity interruptions. Tampa Electric is investigating, said spokesman Ross Bannister, but so far the company doesn't know the cause.

Swift was the first to bring the problem to TECO's attention. He said his early inquiries were brushed off. "They said, "You can expect these types of things every time a bird lands on a wire,' " he said.

Dissatisfied, he contacted Walt Cawein, president of Sun City Center's Community Association. Cawein, he said, turned the issue over to John Bowker, who runs the community's Internet newsletter, eNews.

Bowker used the newsletter to make a quick survey. His findings: Power interruptions occurred all over town, but more often in the middle of the community's north section and in the southern sections around Platinum Drive. Just as interesting, he wrote, homes on Del Webb Boulevard were not reporting interruptions.

Bowker also voiced concern that the power interruptions might cause electric medical support equipment to malfunction.

But recently, resident Enid Uhrich said that wasn't the case.

Uhrich, 83, organizes evacuations of electricity-dependent residents during prolonged power outages such as after hurricanes, when residents might be without electricity for a week or two.

She said such short interruptions - only a few seconds or minutes in duration - are not a problem for people using electrical medical equipment.

Even her own husband, who uses a machine to treat his sleep apnea, has not been affected, she said.

"I don't think anyone is medically at risk," she said. "It's just annoying."

Cawein appointed Swift and another resident, Art Swallow, to head a task force on the issue. A group from Sun City Center met with TECO a few weeks ago. This time, Swift said, he was pleased with TECO's quick response.

Bannister said TECO is troubleshooting the Sun City Center circuits, but he added, the residents are not really experiencing anything unusual overall.

"One hundred percent reliability of electric power is not guaranteed ... there are lots of opportunities for electric power to be interrupted - from people backing a car into a pole, to weather, squirrels, plant materials," Bannister said. "We're not sure if this is an acute problem or a chronic problem, but it's certainly a symptom we need to look into."

[Last modified August 11, 2005, 08:56:11]