Above — an arc in an aging lightning arrestor at the City of Alliance Broadwater substation caused the a system-wide power outage for just under two hours Monday.

Alliance lost electricity for just under two hours Monday.

The outage began at 10:39 in the morning when a lightning arrestor at the Broadwater Substation on the south side of town went bad.

City of Alliance Electric Supt. Larry Heinrich says that the aging arrestor arced and caused the system to shut down. He says moisture from the recent storms probably found its way into a crack in the arrestor which caused the arc and subsequent shut down.

Heinrich says his crews originally began searching for problems at the West Tenth Street substation and a 34.5KV loop around Alliance before the problem was discovered at the Broadwater substation. He says a majority of the nearly two-hour outage was spent trying to pinpoint the problem.

Heinrich says he understands the frustration citizens have during an extended outage, but he says he hopes they understand that a certain amount of assessment needs to take place.

The outage knocked KCOW-AM, KQSK-FM and KAAQ-FM off the air because the programming for all three stations is channeled through the Eagle Communications studios in Alliance. All three stations were back on the air as soon as the power was restored. The recent renovations to the KCOW Studio in Alliance also made the use of a more than 30-year-old generator obsolete.