Power restored after outage left 5,500 offline in Dorchester County

KNIGHTSVILLE, S.C. (WCSC) - Dominion Energy says electricity is back on for thousands of its customers in the Summerville and Knightsville areas of Dorchester County.

The larger of the two outages, centered in the Knightsville area, was reported before 1:30 p.m. and affected a total of 4,913 customers. Though initial estimates showed power was due to be restored by 4 p.m., the outage was resolved before 3:30 p.m.

A smaller outage, which appeared to be centered near the Newington area, had another 529 customers without power. That outage was also resolved.

Summerville High School was briefly evacuated after a power surge set off a fire alarm, Summerville Fire and Rescue Capt. Jeremiah Lee said. The students quickly returned to the school and Lee said their units were only at the scene for about 14 minutes.

The district sent a message to parents alerting them to multiple power, phone, and internet outages in the area affecting district schools.

“We are working closely with Dominion Energy, Spectrum, and Dorchester County and receiving constant updates,” the message states. “Buses will continue to run, and students will dismiss on time.”

It was not immediately clear what caused the outages.