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Southampton County and the city of Franklin experienced power outages that impacted a significant number of people on Wednesday, Jan. 22, and Thursday, Jan. 23.

Wendell L. Adkison, line technician superintendent with Franklin Municipal Power and Light, stated, “We had 560 customers off from 11:25 to 12:33 p.m. Wednesday. We had a failed 600 amp switch in (the) substation go to ground, knocking power out all the way to Courtland.”

Cherise M. Newsome, Dominion Energy senior communications specialist with media relations, noted that while DE provides service to the municipal power delivery operations in Franklin, it also provides direct service to customers in Franklin and Southampton.

In a Thursday afternoon statement, Newsome said, “Shortly after 6 a.m. today, a power outage affected about 510 Dominion Energy customers in the Franklin and Southampton County regions. Crews are on-site and as of 9 a.m. were able to restore all but 146 of them, and as of noon they had restored all but about 30 customers.”

Nearly 10 minutes later she sent a follow-up statement: “I just got word that the final customers’ power was restored, shortly after noon today.”

In the first release she noted that the cause of the outage was still under review.