United Group Insurance

Bird causes 1,180 customers to lose power

News

September 10th, 2013 by Ric Hanson

A bird flying into an electrical  substation in Griswold Tuesday morningcaused 1,180 customers of Mid-American Energy to lose power. Tina Potthoff, Media Relations Manager for the utility company, told KJAN News the outage affecting parts of three counties began at 8:07-a.m.  By 10:20-a.m., 1,100 people were still without power.

She said crews “Are working to restore electricity as safely and efficiently as possible.”  Potthoff said they were working to get those still without power switched to a different circuit. She said the substation itself has to be repaired before it can come back online. And, while unable to provide a specific timeline for when all customers might have power returned, Potthoff said they are hoping to do so early this afternoon.

At it’s peak, 1,180 customers were left without power. That included 564 in Griswold, 226 in Lewis, 201 in Elliott, and a dozen or so customers in Pottawattamie and Montgomery Counties. Power was restored to all customers by no later than 2:15-p.m.