Power knocked out at Beaufort County offices in ‘bizarre’ incident in Beaufort
A power loss caused problems at the Beaufort County administrative office building on Ribaut Road in Beaufort Monday afternoon, leaving the building in the dark for about five hours.
“It’s just kind of bizarre,” County Administrator Eric Greenway said.
Power went out between 9 and 10 a.m. and was restored before 2 p.m.
“I made the decision to close the building to the public because we were in the dark,” Greenway said.
About 30 to 40 employees were sent home, including elected officials.
The office houses the county’s administrative offices, register of deeds, tax assessor, planning and zoning, business licensing, building codes and the auditor and treasurer.
Before 10 a.m., a contract crew performing underground work for Dominion Energy accidentally damaged a power pole along Ribaut Road, causing the power loss, Dominion spokesman Paul Fischer said.
Four customers, including the municipal and county offices in the area, were affected, according to Dominion, which apologized for the inconvenience. Service was restored at approximately 1:30 p.m.
Beaufort County’s Greenway said the outage came when digging was occurring beside a utility pole to put in new lines.
“When they did the weight of the line attached to the pole pulled it over leaning out into the roadway,” Greenway said.
The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office reported Monday morning that power lines were down at Ribaut Road and Boundary Street, and all southbound lanes of Ribaut were blocked.
About 2 p.m., the power had been restored, officials said.
The power failure at the county’s administration offices forced Monday’s County Council Finance Committee meeting to be moved to 2 p.m. Tuesday.
Beaufort County Council Public Facilities meeting was still scheduled to occur at 3 p.m.
This story was originally published May 17, 2021 at 12:00 AM.
