RICHMOND, Ind. – Residents in Richmond and other east central Indiana communities dealt with a widespread power outage Tuesday.
According to the Richmond Power & Light website, more than 12,000 customers were without power at 8:50 a.m. Tuesday. In less than an hour, outages were down significantly with RPL reporting about 1,750 by 9:50 a.m. By 10:50 a.m., about 120 outages were reported. By 11 a.m., RPL said power had been restored.
In an earlier social media post, the utility described this as a “regional outage” and said Centerville, Liberty and Hagerstown were also facing outages.
“We are working to restore as quickly and safely as possible,” RPL said. “We are experiencing a widespread outage.”
RPL later indicated a car crashed into a large transmission line that linked several electric systems across the region.
Richmond Mayor Dave Snow said earlier in a social media post that a “major transmission issue” affected Richmond and surrounding communities.
Richmond Community Schools told parents to prepare for the possibility of an early release. That became a reality later in the morning, when the district said students were being sent home early.
“With the uncertainty of power to our schools, we are forced to dismiss all RCS schools early today,” the district said in a message on its website. “All 7th-12th grade bus riders will be taken home via school bus. All PreK-6th grade students will need to be picked up by a parent/guardian.”
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Richmond Community Schools announced that all of its buildings will be open for regularly scheduled classes on Wednesday.
Indiana University East canceled classes until noon, according to a social media alert. The university reassessed the situation and said, with power restored, classes would resume at 12 p.m.
Wayne County officials said the outage delayed voting for about an hour on Tuesday.
