MIDDLETOWN – An equipment malfunction at an Orange and Rockland
Utilities substation in Middletown Saturday evening resulted in a blackout
that affected 52,000 customers in a wide area of Orange, Sullivan and
Pike counties. The lights were turned back on after midnight Sunday morning.
O&R crews that responded to the Shoemaker substation in Middletown
around 7:30 p.m. found an overhead line failed resulting in adjacent equipment
automatically shutting down as well.
The cause of the overhead line failure was not immediately known, but
a preliminary inspection of the adjacent equipment has not revealed any
damage.
When the lights first went out, several hundred people were left in the
dark at the Galleria at Crystal Run in Wallkill forcing them out to their
vehicles and onto access roads leading out of the complex. As a result,
there was instant gridlock as drivers maneuvered out to the local roads
without the benefit of traffic lights.
The only lights at the Galleria at Cyrstal Run Saturday evening
were those on the vehicles trying to leave the dark parking lot
