10,000 Tourists Evacuated From Outer Banks After Power Outage

OUTER BANKS NC -- An estimated 10,000 tourists on Ocracoke and Hatteras islands were given until noon on Friday to evacuate. The islands were left without power Thursday after a construction company damaged an electric transmission cable.

PCL Construction, the company that caused the outage, told the Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative that workers drove a steel casing into an electric cable on Bonner Bridge.

The power outage began around 4:30 a.m., leaving an estimated 9,000 residents without power.

The evacuation was in effect at 5 p.m. Thursday. Nobody will be allowed on the island without proof of residency, NBC reported officials as saying.

Fees for ferry trips between Ocracoke and Cetar Island, or Ocracoke and Swan Quarter, have been waived.

Virginia-based New River Electrical Corp. is coming to dig up the cable and assess the damage. The company was the one who installed the cable on Bonner Bridge in 1995.

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