Local News in Brief : Costa Mesa : Metallic Balloons Zap Electrical Power
Metallic balloons entangled in electrical lines caused two short power outages early Thursday to about 250 homes and businesses within a half-mile radius of the intersection of Sunflower Avenue and Harbor Boulevard, officials said.
According to a spokesman for Southern California Edison Co., the balloons caused a short circuit in a transformer just south of Sunflower Avenue at 9:04 a.m. Electricity was restored to about 100 customers within 24 minutes, and by 9:38 a.m. power was back on for the remaining 150 customers.
Another brief outage occurred about 20 minutes later, Edison spokesman Gene Carter said.
Metallic balloons been a chronic problem for the utility, causing 106 power outages in 1986 and 229 outages in 1987, Carter said. Those outages affected 500,000 customers and cost Edison about $600,000 in repairs, he said.
Carter said the number of outages caused by metallic balloons in the first quarter of 1988 has already surpassed last year’s total.
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