VERO BEACH — Among those affected by Sunday’s widespread power outage for Vero Beach Electric customers was the Indian River Medical Center.
For two hours, the hospital ran on generators until the power was restored. There was no indication that patients were adversely impacted.
The hospital, much like other Vero Beach Water customers, also had low water pressure during the power outage. A Boil Water Advisory was issued for water customers.
Patients at the hospital were provided with bottled water and told not to drink from faucets and taps.
The cafeteria is now following CDC guidelines, which requires ice to be brought in from outside vendors and made before the power and water problems began.
The hospital’s own ice machines have been turned off and will be flushed once the boil water restrictions are lifted.
What caused the power outages Sunday evening remains unknown. City Manager Jim O’Connor said Vero Electric lost about 40 megawatts of capacity and that Substation 7 located in the 1800 block of 58th Avenue went down.
O’Connor said transmission on the southern span of a major feeder line was also lost at about the same time. Roughly half of Vero’s 34,000 electric customers lost power during the outage.
Water service was restored around 7 p.m. and power was restored by city crews to nearly all of the city’s customers at approximately 8:15 p.m. Pockets of the system on the south barrier island remained out at 8:25 p.m.
Reports of power and water out in Indian River Shores began coming in around 6:30 p.m. and the outage extended on the mainland to Vero’s territory north of Indian River Medical Center.
Issues with the water system on the barrier island and on the mainland appear to have been temporary as backup generators were activated. Customers who reported having no water later said the water was back on after nearly 30 minutes.
Parts of the Castaway Cove area on the Indian River side, and parts of the south barrier island were not affected by the outage.
