ROCKINGHAM — While power has been restored, crews with Duke Energy are still trying to figure out what exactly led to a massive power outage across Richmond County on Wednesday.
According to a Duke spokesman, an equipment failure on the transmission system left more than 6,000 homes and businesses in Rockingham and Hamlet in the dark just before 3 p.m.
However, the spokesman said Duke is still investigating the cause of the failure.
The outage affected both Duke customers and those of Pee Dee Electric.
PDE announced at 4:53 p.m. that electric service had been restored to all of its customers.
By 5:50 p.m., Duke’s Outage Viewer showed three customers in Hamlet, two off of Wiregrass Road and one off of County Home Road without power.
There were also 38 customers in the area of Pineleigh Avenue, east of Rockingham, without power, but the spokesman said that outage was believed to be separate from the main one earlier.
In 2022, a snake at a substation caused an outage that left more than 4,000 customers without power.
Most outages are caused by falling trees and storms, according to the electric provider. However, thousands each year are caused by animals.
