News

BATH -- [WENY] Bath Electric Systems is still investigating the cause of the weekend outage that sent sparks from the transponder shooting into the sky.
     The outage left the whole village in the dark for more than a day.
     Neighbors in Bath are being asked to set their electric heat lower than 60 degrees and unplug major appliances like refrigerators and electric stove in hopes of preventing any rolling blackouts.
     The village of Bath has lost 25 percent of the capability of its electric distribution network due to an unidentified problem.
     That load is being distributed to the other networks which are being pushed to the max.
     Businesses are being asked to close early to conserve the power.
     And for some the expenses are already adding up..
     "We lost a whole cooler of food," said Stephanie Hillman, the owner of Stephanie's Family Restaurant. "We had to throw out whole bowls of chili, macaroni salad, coleslaw, because you don't take any chances.. it smelled bad, so you know."
     She lost about $600 worth of food and closed early today to help the village out with energy conservation.
     And she's not the only one.
     "Today we're closing at 2:00 p.m., as well as tomorrow. So that will be Monday and Tuesday both at 2:00 to help with the power outage, they ask people to refrain from using electricity the best they can," said Jamie Hojonski, the manager at Chat-a-Whyle."Everybody's got to sacrifice a little bit and we don't mind putting in our part to do that."
     One third of the households in Bath use electric heat, and they're being asked to only heat their houses up to 60 degrees.
     Though it won't be as frigid as it was last night, temperatures are set to dip into the low twenties.
     But, Bath Electric Systems says a the problem will be fixed in the near future.
     "I think we'll actually have the root cause identified by the end of the day tomorrow if not on Wednesday somewhere in that time frame," said Matthew Hunter, executive director at Bath Electric Systems.
And until then, they're asking people shut off and unplug the following items:

• Electric ovens
• Electric hot water heaters
• Electric clothes dryers
• Clothes washing machines
• Dishwashers
• Microwaves
• Consumer electronics
• Freezers and fridges on after 9pm off before 7am