About 75 percent of City of Delavan residents were without electricity for about four hours Monday after a power pole caught fire.
Delavan police officers on patrol discovered the pole on fire at about 2:30 a.m. on the railroad right of way east of Hallberg and Wisconsin streets, according to the city Public Works Department.
Fire department units were dispatched and discovered that a pole operated by the American Transmission Company was on fire. The transmission line is a 139,000-volt line that supplies power to about 75 percent of the city, according to Public Works Director Mark Wendorf.
Power company technicians met with Police Chief O’Neill on the scene and shut down power to the transmission line at 3:32 a.m. Once the transmission line was de-energized, power company officials asked the fire department to apply an elevated stream of water on the burning pole as it was severely damaged by fire. Power company technicians were able to reroute power from the County Highway K substation and restore power to the city at about 6:45 a.m., according to the department.
