Outage

About 400 Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers lost power and a dozen traffic lights failed yesterday when an underground electrical cable malfunctioned in East Baltimore.Darcel Guy, a BGE spokeswoman, said power was cut off to the neighborhoods east of Broadway and north of Pratt Street at 3: 42 p.m. when a 4,000-volt cable from the Fells Point substation malfunctioned.She could not say what caused the outage or when power would be restored.The city temporarily replaced the traffic lights with stop signs.

Two underground cable failures in Columbia's Town Center knocked out electrical service yesterday to 248 customers, including part of The Mall in Columbia.Service was restored by 4:09 p.m. to all of the commercial and residential customers affected by the outage, said Darcel Guy, a spokeswoman for Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.The outage, which occurred at 1:31 p.m., cut electrical service to Hecht's and the shops along the two-level section of the mall leading to the department store, said Rodney Renner, the mall's general manager.

An electrical outage in Annapolis yesterday afternoon closed an Anne Arundel County government office building, sending 250 employees home early and affecting several other offices and residences downtown. The outage - the third in about two months in the area - was caused by a problem with an underground cable in the area of West and Calvert streets about 2 p.m., said Constellation Energy spokesman Clay Perry. He said 238 customers were affected. Power was restored to two-thirds of those customers in about two hours.

A power outage and generator fire caused thousands of Baltimore City cable TV subscribers to lose service over the weekend, a United Artists Cable spokeswoman said yesterday.The loss of service affected residents west of the Jones Falls Expressway, in seven different zip code areas, with cable down for several hours on Sunday.The problem started on Saturday with a Baltimore Gas and Electric power outage, according to Marilyn Harris-Davis, a spokeswoman for the cable company. Because of the outage, UA backup generators were used to maintain the system.

A power outage near the State House in Annapolis last night plunged more than 800 Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers into darkness.Power was restored to 122 customers by 8: 10 p.m., and the remainder were expected to have power restored by late last night, said Darcel Guy, a BGE spokeswoman.Guy said an underground feeder cable at West and Calvert streets near State Circle failed about 5: 35 p.m. The outage extended to businesses and homes on nearby Calvert, Newman, Cathedral, Duke of Gloucester, Union and Charles streets, he said.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. officials have determined the cause of a brief power outage Oct. 14 in Columbia.BGE spokeswoman Brenda Pettigrew said an underground cable was accidentally sliced by an independent contractor. The incident resulted in a loss of power for about 75 minutes for more than 940 customers around the Mall in Columbia.Pettigrew said she did not know what kind of work the contractor was completing nor the name of the contractor.Pub Date: 10/23/98

A power outage struck a small, key section of Ellicott City yesterday just before 9 a.m., leaving 1,133 customers without electricity for varying amounts of time until 11: 30 a.m., when power was restored to all, said Jessica Brown, a Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. spokeswoman.The outage affected the county government complex in Ellicott City and the Historic District along Main Street, including several traffic lights. County Administrator Raquel Sanudo said the 911 emergency center was not affected.

Digital clocks are giving electric utilities fits because even short interruptions of power cause the displays to fail, precipitating floods of calls from frustrated consumers unable to figure out how to reset them.The culprit, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, is cost-cutting on the part of clock-makers.Clocks made in the 1970s came equipped with capacitors big enough to keep the display lighted through outages of up to 10 seconds. But newer ones fade in one second.

It became a dark Valentine's Day in Annapolis -- some lovers' dinners canceled, motorists annoyed and legislative hearings disrupted -- as the power went out for about 10,000 customers of the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. yesterday. BGE blamed an equipment malfunction for the 4 p.m. surprise that complicated afternoon-rush traffic and consequently delayed crews from reaching the problem site at the utility's Cedar Park substation. Power was restored to about 90 percent of those affected within two hours, said BGE spokeswoman Linda Foy, and to all customers by 7 p.m. But restaurateurs faced with packed reservation books said the outage was long enough to delay preparations for a busy night of romantic dinners.

More than 3,500 customers lost power in Clarksville, Glenelg and other parts of western Howard County yesterday because of a technical problem at a substation in that area, according to a spokeswoman for Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. The electricity went out at 1:40 p.m. and was restored within two hours, said Sharon Sasada, the spokeswoman. Schools completed their days, and most businesses continued operating. "It was a pain, but it went pretty well," said Matt Bormel, an employee at the Bagel Bin restaurant in the River Hill Village Center in Columbia.