A widespread power failure that affected much of Fayetteville on Sunday morning was caused by an equipment failure, Public Works Commission spokesman Gavin MacRoberts told CityView.

And another, much smaller outage that morning was caused by a squirrel, he said.

The smaller outage came first, at 9:21 a.m. Sunday. It was in the area where Rosehill Road intersects Ramsey Street in Fayetteville’s Northside area, according to a PWC outage map that CityView viewed on Sunday. It affected 18 homes or businesses, and was “caused by a squirrel taking out a fused section of overhead distribution,” MacRoberts said.

This is a map of Fayetteville, North Carolina. Parts of it are shaded in red to mark where there was a power failure.
The red areas on this map from the Fayetteville Public Works Commission show approximately where electrical power was out on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, due to an equipment failure. The green icon shows were a smaller outage took place that day. Nearly 9,700 homes and businesses lost power. Credit: Screenshot by CityView, via the Public Works Commission

The small outage was repaired at 12:48 p.m., he said.

The second outage struck a large swath of Fayetteville, at 9:41 a.m. during Sunday morning church services. The area affected included Bragg Boulevard, Raeford Road, Robeson Street, parts of Skibo Road, the Douglas Byrd area and Arran Hills vicinity, according to the PWC’s outage map. It stretched from central to West Fayetteville and affected 9,658 homes and businesses.

People on social media and the Fayetteville Police Department reported traffic lights were out, and drivers needed to use caution.

“The second and larger outage had a singular cause, equipment failure on the PWC sub-transmission system,” MacRoberts said. The power was restored at 11:02 a.m., he said.

The outage map provided to the general public on the PWC’s website does not update immediately, MacRoberts said. This made it appear that parts of town were without power when it was already restored, he said.

In effort to prevent a similar power outage in the future, “PWC will continue its inspection and maintenance programs and to robustly continue to implement the Capital Improvements plans that are in place,” MacRoberts said.

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One reply on “Equipment failure caused Sunday’s widespread power failure in Fayetteville”

  1. Hoke County involvement lumber river also had a power outage yesterday morning, 18° weather and my husband is a disabled war veteran 8 o’clock in the morning, we had no power.

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