Winds knock out power in rural Hall County

High winds left some northwestern Hall County residents without power for a couple of hours Monday afternoon.

The outages, which began at about 4 p.m., extended west of Grand Island in the northern part of the county, including the communities of Alda and Cairo, said Southern Power District spokeswoman LeAnne Doose.

She wasn't sure how many customers were affected.

The outage wasn't Southern's first this spring because of wind. Doose said the utility has seen a few sporadic wind-related outages this year.

Though the outage was the first of its magnitude this year, Doose said it wasn't particularly unusual.

"Whenever we see wind, we just expect that that might be possible for us," she said.

By 7:30 p.m., Doose said Southern crews had fixed the problem and restored power to the county.

"For now we're sitting good and hoping that it remains that way tonight," she said.