Damage to insulator knocks out power to Chappell, Lodgepole

Widespread power outages occurred across an area covered by the Wheat Belt Public Power District on Tuesday. The outages extended from the North Platte River south to the Colorado state line between 4 a.m. to 9 a.m. This included the areas of Lodgepole and Chappell.

The combination of damage to an insulator, which is the glass equipment that holds the line, believed to be hit by a shotgun paired with wet, icy weather caused the line to fail, according to a press statement from Wheat Belt.

Finding the problem in the dark was very difficult due to a low layer of fog that made it almost impossibl...