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14,000 Are Without Power All Thanks To A Crow
Ominous... (Photo by tallin via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr)
Crows often get a bad rap. Sometimes they're seen as a harbinger of bad luck. Other times they symbolize death. And once in a while they'll even fly into a 34,500-volt circuit breaker and leave 14,000 residents without power for hours, which is exactly what happened today in the Valley Village area, reports the L.A. Times.
The outage happened at around 8:40 a.m., when Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's Distributing Station 57 experienced an equipment failure, according to KTLA. When a crew arrived at the station they found that a crow had been responsible for the malfunction.
According to the Times, outages of this scope are often solved quickly. But, due to complications, the crew had to bring in a remote transformer called a "hog wagon" to help restore the power. Initially the department said that it could take up to 10 hours to restore full power. As of 2:43 p.m., 13,500 residents were still without power:
Valley Village Outage Update: Approx. 1,500 restored 13,500 remain w/o power. Crews working diligently to restore to all customers.
— LADWP (@LADWP) June 23, 2016
Hopefully, this isn't the beginning to something truly awful:
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You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
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