Outage traced to lucky driver

Somewhere out there is a Systems Transport driver who is lucky to be alive. At least Cheney Light Department Director Joe Noland thinks so.

Late last Friday afternoon, Cheney and other nearby areas of the West Plains went dark due to a power outage caused when a Systems Transport boom truck’s boom made contact with a 115,000-volt main feeder cable from which Cheney receives 99 percent of its power. The truck, ironically loaded with wooden power poles, was under the transmission line when the operator decided to raise the boom, striking the line and shorting out a transformer downstream at Chen...