Lights go out briefly on East Mesa ahead of powerline replacement
LAS CRUCES – Multiple households on the East Mesa experienced flickering lights Wednesday, May 18 as part of El Paso Electric rerouting power ahead of a powerline replacement project.
Customers will likely experience similar flickering or dimming once the project is completed and the power rerouting is reversed.
George De La Torre, director of corporate communications and marketing for EPE, said the project is set to start May 24. Work is scheduled to commence from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. through May 27. During these times U.S. 70 will be shut down between Rinconada Avenue and Sonoma Ranch Boulevard.
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New Mexico Department of Transportation announced via a news release that eastbound and westbound traffic on U.S. 70 will be detoured to Bataan Memorial Frontage Road while the project is ongoing. One a single lane will be open for travel in each direction. Speed limits will also be reduced.
De La Torre said the purpose of the project is to place overhead power lines in the area to replace old lines in the transmission corridor that runs across U.S. 70. This will increase reliability of power ahead of the summer months.
“Our summer begins June 1, so we wanted to get that done before we hit the really hot, consistent high temperatures of over 100 degrees,” De La Torre said.
In preparation of the project, crew members rerouted power in the area Wednesday so customers are not affected by long outages next week. However, several homes experienced flickering lights late Wednesday afternoon as this was done.
De La Torre said EPE only received a handful of calls concerning the flickering or short outages. He said about 90 homes will see trucks working in their area next week. By about 8:15 p.m. the rerouting was completed.
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Leah Romero is the trending reporter at the Las Cruces Sun-News and can be reached at 575-418-3442, LRomero@lcsun-news.com or @rromero_leah on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: El Paso Electric customers experience flickering lights ahead of powerline replacement
