JACKSON - A contractor installing an underground telephone cable in the Bent Creek subdivision accidently slashed an underground 12.5 kilovolt electrical distribution cable Tuesday afternoon. The mishap knocked out electrical service for nearly 10 hours to about 130-150 Jackson residents who live along Ridge Road.

Ken Abernathy, electrical distribution and transmission supervisor for the city of Jackson, said the outage occurred at about 2:30 p.m., Tuesday when the Cape Girardeau contractor cut into the cable while attempting to bore under Augusta Street, in the Bent Creek subdivision along Ridge Road.

Abernathy said the contractor was installing a telephone cable into the subdivision for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company when the accident occurred.

"Apparently, the contractor was not even aware the electrical cable had been cut," said Abernathy. "When the bore cut into the cable, it caused relays on the Ridge Road circuit at the power plant to open, cutting off power to our customers in the subdivision, and along Ridge Road, Oak Hill Road, and the McKendree Hills subdivision."

Abernathy said it took so long to restore the power because city crews had to dig out the damaged section of underground electrical cable.

"We knew pretty well where it was because of the bore under the road," he said. "But when we repaired what we thought was the break in the cable at about 9:30 p.m., the circuit relayed again, which meant there was still a fault on the cable. So we had to dig some more. We finally found the rest of the damaged cable a few feet away. We got it repaired and had the power back on at about 12:45 a.m., Wednesday."

Abernathy said a power and light representative was at the site earlier in the day to show the contractor where the electrical cable was buried. He said it appeared the contractor may have bored a little too high, cutting into the cable instead of going under it.

"It's a wonder somebody wasn't killed," he added. "But they have a grounding mat to stand on when they're operating the bore machine, and the bore machine is also grounded to prevent something like that from happening."