Dust, wind knock out power

A dust storm that rolled into Maricopa Sunday night knocked out power for about 680 Electrical District No. 3 customers within the city, and forced city police to direct traffic at a signal light affected by the outage.

ED3 officials said the outage was due to high winds and a total of 1,800 customers lost power districtwide for one to two hours during two outages about 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. The district stretches from the Maricopa area south past Interstate 8. 

When winds pick up, debris tends to get blown into the lines, said Systems Operations Manager Tony Solano. ED3 officials suspect this caused the outage. 

“We didn’t find anything structurally damaged,” Solano said. 

Later, a line was knocked down in the early morning hours in an area off State Route 84, he said. Only 20 customers were affected and power was restored about 3:15 a.m. 

In Maricopa, outages were reported in the Desert Cedars neighborhood and the west side of the city near the interim City Hall, Solano said. By midnight, power was restored to both locations.

Customers in the Hidden Valley area also experienced outages for about 90 minutes. 

Maricopa Police spokesman Ricky Alvarado said there were reports of alarms going off at businesses around the city – a typical occurrence with strong wind gusts. He explained the wind can sometimes set off motion sensor alarms within buildings. 

Police did respond to a traffic signal that went out at Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway and State Route 347, Alvarado said. Officers directed traffic during the outage.