PAROWAN — Residents in southern Utah towns of Parowan, Brian Head, Paragonah and Parowan Valley were expected to remain without power until midnight Sunday after a "catastrophic failure" at Rocky Mountain Power’s Parowan Valley substation the previous day.
Though Rocky Mountain Power said it hoped to restore power by early Saturday morning, power hadn't returned to more than 1,700 households by mid-Sunday afternoon, according to Rocky Mountain Power’s outages map. In an update, the utility company said it hoped to restore power by midnight.
On Saturday afternoon, the company's official Twitter page said the cause of the outage was due to a loss of transmission to the substation.
"We are in the process of gathering necessary equipment from outside facilities to assist with restoration efforts," the company tweeted.
According to a statement from Parowan officials, they and the Parowan Power Co. were working with Rocky Mountain Power to establish a temporary power supply to the city.
The temporary solution was said to require rolling blackouts in the town, which would "consist of turning on sections of the city for four hours at a time."
“It is important that residents do their best to conserve power and energy and not turn on your air conditions or other appliances that consume large amounts of power," Parowan officials said. "If there is too much draw on the temporary solution it will cause it to fail."
Meanwhile, city officials said they were working on setting up a temporary power source to water wells to maintain the culinary water supply. Residents were advised to not use culinary water for outside uses until the power outage is resolved.
Those who have an in-home electric oxygen machine or other electrical medical equipment were advised to contact their equipment service provider. City officials said they were in contact with home health care providers who said they would deliver any extra or needed medical equipment 24 hours a day until the situation is resolved.
Residents can sign up to receive local alerts through Iron County's Citizen Alert System site.