According to Volunteer Energy Cooperative’s Area Manager Paul Selvidge, 15,000 VEC customers were affected during the 37-minute blackout.

Selvidge said VEC employees worked with TVA at the East Cleveland Substation to restore the power to customers in Riceville, Charleston, Tasso, Georgetown and Ocoee.

“The East Cleveland Substation feeds several local utility substations,” Selvidge said. “A capacitor bank had a fuse failure, causing the outage.”

TSSAA Hall of Fame Basketball games were in progress at Walker Valley High School when the power failed.

For 37 minutes, about 300 people sat in the dark, according to Mike Turner, athletic director at WVHS.

“The lights went out during the second quarter of the second game.

“We just waited for the power to come back on and we expected it to be off longer,” Turner said. “The power came back on quicker than we thought it would.”

Officials were able to complete the four games which had been scheduled.