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Show 32' The Times-Independent • Utah 84532 Thurtd»y, May 15 1969 Green River ; Power Out For 14 Hours 1 Electric power service in ' Green River was back to normal Tuesday after Utah Power & Light Co. crews replaced a faulty transformer whose failure blacked out power to the community for 15% hours Sunday night and Monday morning. The massive new 13-ton replacement transformer was dispatched to Green River : by special highway equipment needed to handle the heavy load. The power outage occurred at 10 p.m. Sunday after the transformer feeding the town from a high voltage source failed In the meantime, special crews from Utah Power & Light undeir the direction of B'laine Shields and L. B. Stringer of Moab, were rushed to the community to make temporary field repairs and service restoration until the new transformer arrived later Monday. ! Tuesday a portable sub-I station equipped with "a. • transformer was sent to Green River to handle power feeding tfie city while the i new replacement was ia-; stalled. Use of the portable i sub-station eliminated any service discontinuance. The Sunday outage affected all of the community and extended south to the Utah launchi complex of Whit a Sands Missile Base. During the power outage, Green River residents bundled up when temperatures 1 lowered to 25 degrees. Food was no problem; some ser-. vice stations pumped gas manually or with portable generators. Meanwhile, some 300 personnel at the Missile Launch Complex got an unexpected WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGER FRIDAY, FEB. 28, 1969-PAGE 3 Pershing missile unit arrives at Blanding An advance party of 125 men from a Ft. Sill, Okla., Army Pershing missile unit arrived at Black Mesa, near Blanding, Utah, this week. Traveling in a convoy of 45 vehicles, the group completed a three-day, 900-mile movement from Ft. Sill to Blanding. The five officers and 120 enlisted men, members of the End Battalion, 44th Artillery, immediately began establishing a bivouac area on Black Mesa. Leaving Ft. Sill next week in a convoy of 80 vehicles will be the remainder of the 2nd Battalion. This main party of 10 officers and 17 5 enlisted men will arrive at Black Mesa about March 6. The rest of the month will be devoted to final preparations for the spring series of Pershing firings, scheduled as annual service practice for missile units of the Seventh U. S. Army based in Europe and the Federal Republic of Germany Air Force. The series will begin during the week of March 30. The two-stage artillery missiles will impact on White Sands Missile Range, about 350 miles from Blanding. The 2nd Battalion of the 44th Artillery is commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Desmond D. Svieven. This battalion, the Army's first Pershing unit activated in 1963, supports all off-range Pershing firings. The spring series will end during the week of May 11 after eight missiles have been fired. According to LTC Svieven, the majority of the troops will return to Ft. Sill around the middle of May. A small party will remain at Black Mesa through the summer to maintain the camp. The battalion will return to Blanding in the fall. Firing; in the fall series will be • batteries of the 2nd Battalion! itself and additional units of the : German Air Force. Shortly after its arrival the advance party began pitching; 145 tents in the bivouac area I a mile and a quarter west of the launch point. The tent city will consist of 15 large maintenance tents, 100 medium size tents and 30 smaller two-man tents. The site is some 15 miles southwest of Blanding. Access this year will be by way of a new county road running approximately six miles due south from Utah State Highway 95. This road was completed last summer through cooperation of San Juan County with White Sands Missile Range. The 1968 Pershing firings were from another off-range site in Utah at Gilson Butte, near Hanksville. The last firings from the Blanding area were in the fall of 1967. In addition to the Ft. Sill troops, the firings are supported by most elements of White Sands Missile Range. Also on hand to provide support will be the Field Artillery Missile Systems Evaluation Group (FAMSEG) of Ft. Sill, the Pershing Project Manager's Office (PPMO) of the U. S. Army Missile Command at Red-stone Arsenal, Ala., and representatives of the prime contractor for Pershing systems, the Martin Marietta Corp. of Orlando, Fla. Operations are coordinated through the Utah Launch Complex at Green River, an element of WSMR's National Range Operations. RJIonb-inH ic HitrMciH inlr* Hi*»oo |