12,000 lose power early today in Rotterdam, Schenectady

PHOTOGRAPHER: Kathleen Moore

National Grid crews have repaired a transmission line that caused sporadic power outages to more than 12,000 people in Schenectady and Rotterdam throughout Thursday, a company official said.

The power outage began at 2 a.m. with problems on a major transmission line that feeds several distribution lines in Schenectady and Rotterdam, National Grid spokesman Patrick Stella said.

Crews patched together a temporary fix and restored power at 6 a.m., then began searching for the cause of the problem. At 9 a.m., another problem appeared on that line, and 4,000 customers’ lights went out, Stella said.

He said crews restored power to everyone by 2 p.m.

“All the outages are repaired. The transmission line fault caused some other problems throughout the day. We have made repairs everything related to that one outage,” Stella said.