Crews work to restore power in Beaufort Co. after fire at substation

BEAUFORT COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office says a fire at a power substation caused widespread outages in the county Wednesday morning.

Debbie Szpanka, the spokesperson for the town of Bluffton, says the fire happened at a Santee Cooper substation in the Bluffton area and warns the outage could impact traffic between Sun City and Hilton Head Island.

Just before 9:30 a.m., the Palmetto Electric Cooperative outage map showed around 300 customers on Hilton Head Island still without power. Nearly 59,000 customers were without power at the peak of the outage.

In a tweet from Santee Cooper just before 7 a.m., the utility said around one-third of the delivery points had been restored. The company estimated the power would be restored by 8 a.m.

Deputies said utility companies and firefighters were working to restore power to the area as quickly as possible.

Click here for a link to the Palmetto Electric Cooperative’s outage map.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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