It was a series of unfortunate events Monday in the Vernal area. According to Rocky Mountain Power, the afternoon power outage that affected much of the Vernal area was caused by a car running into a power pole. The accident took place on Highway 40 around 1700 West. The car hit a pole and knocked the circuit out. The power was out for about 2 hours and it was during that time that residents noticed that their water had turned brown. People took to Facebook asking one another if they too were experiencing dirty water and rumors, including one that lightning had struck a water line, crept into the conversations as they often do. Brad Grammer from the Ashley Valley Treatment Plant helped keep rumors online to a minimum by explaining that the power outage caused a surge of water to flow into the City water system, stirring up the lines. The lines cleared up by allowing the water to run for a time.
