A widespread power outage in Danvers affected roughly 984 residents for just under an hour this afternoon. 

According to Danvers Utility Director Coleen O'Brien-Pitts, the outage was caused by an inadvertent electrical contact made by a tree trimming contractor while trimming out the trees on the right of way off Hobart Street.  

“We pride ourselves on our system reliability achievements," O'Brien-Pitts said. "It is unfortunate that this outage occurred, which took 900 customers out for an interim while Danvers Electric engineers and lineworkers were able to switch to contingency supply feeders."

Because the contact was made on one of the main 23000-volt circuits that goes through town, outages spread from Endicott to Conant Street. 

"We are working with the tree trimming contractor to determine how the incident occurred and to implement an immediate lessons learned policy, to preclude any further interruptions caused by this nature," O'Brien-Pitts said.