Power will be out Sunday night for some in Smithfield

Some residents of Smithfield will spend a sweaty night Sunday.

Duke Energy has planned emergency maintenance on the Hospital Road substation, and power will be off in that area beginning at midnight on Sunday.

Ted Credel, Smithfield director of public utilities says the work must be done.

"They need repair and I didn't want to wait until October. Normally, we like to do these things March and October because of the temperature and nature of that, but it couldn't wait," he said.

At Johnston Memorial Hospital, patients and staff will be comfortable, operating on backup power generators during the outage.

The outage, weather permitting, will last for five hours, and power will be restored at approximately 5 a.m. Should the weather not cooperate for Duke Energy crews to make the necessary repairs, a "rain date" is scheduled for Sunday at the same times.

If you have any questions, please contact the Smithfield Public Utilities Department at 919-934-2798.