Large power outage leads to school cancellations in Eastern Kentucky county

Schools in Leslie County were closed Tuesday due to a large power outage in the county.

The outage began around 3:30 a.m. and affected about 3,200 customers, said Cindy Wiseman, a spokesperson for Kentucky Power. As of 10 a.m. Tuesday less than 1,000 were still without electricity but power was expected to be should be restored within the hour.

Equipment failure at a substation caused the outage, Wiseman said, adding that the exact reason for the equipment failure was still being determined.

Crews began investigating the outage in the early morning darkness and have worked for hours to bring the power back on, Wiseman said.

In a tweet announcing the school closures, Leslie County Schools said the outage affected three elementary schools.

Rick Childress

Lexington Herald-Leader

502-219-6483

Rick Childress covers Eastern Kentucky for the Herald-Leader. The Lexington native and University of Kentucky graduate first joined the paper in 2016 as an agate desk clerk in the sports section and in 2020 covered higher education during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He spent much of 2021 covering news and sports for the Klamath Falls Herald and News in rural southern Oregon before returning to Kentucky in 2022.