Felled tree causes shutdown at TVA's Watts Bar Nuclear Plant

The cooling towers of the TVA Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Spring City, Tenn.

SPRING CITY, Tenn. - Operations at an East Tennessee nuclear power plant are back to normal after an interruption caused by a large tree falling onto a transmission line.

Tennessee Valley Authority spokeswoman Gail Rymer says automatic shutdown procedures began at the Watts Bar plant when the electrical fault was detected on Friday afternoon.

Rymer says a homeowner cut down the tree that fell onto a 500 kilovolt transmission line close to the plant located near Spring City, about 55 miles southwest of Knoxville. All six reactors were back online by Sunday afternoon.

TVA is the nation's largest public utility. It provides power to about 9 million people in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.