West Side Endures Five-Hour Blackout

West Side Endures Five-Hour Blackout

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 at 14:21

The power outage that left thousands of residents in the province’s northwest in the dark for several hours yesterday is being blamed on a couple of bird nests.

SaskPower spokesman Larry Christie says repair crews dispatched on ATVs in the pouring rain yesterday discovered two osprey nests on the main transmisson line in a wooded location approximately 8 kms south of the community.

Christie says the result was electricity was not being delivered to any customers north and west of Glaslyn.

He says power disruptions caused by birds building nests on power lines are not uncommon.

He adds the crews were lucky the nests were in the earlier stages of construction — noting osprey nests are sometimes 5 feet in diameter.

Christie says approximately 10,000 customers were affected by the power outage, which spanned an area from Glaslyn west to the Alberta border and north to the Northwest Territories.

The power went out at about 11:00 yesterday morning and was eventually restored at around 4:30 in the afternoon.