THOUSAND OAKS : Power Outage Hits 2,000 Residents
About 2,000 Thousand Oaks residents lost electrical power Tuesday after a dead oak tree collapsed onto power lines, triggering a small fire and toppling a nest of baby woodpeckers, authorities said.
The power lines were hit at 5:50 p.m., causing a transformer and a patch of grass to catch fire at the intersection of Houston and Greenwich drives, said Christina Bradley, Southern California Edison spokeswoman.
Firefighters quickly put out the fire, authorities said.
Electricity was restored to 90% of the 2,000 customers by 7:20 p.m. Tuesday, Bradley said. Most of the affected customers live along Hillcrest Drive, between Moorpark Road and Erbes Road, she said.
Firefighters found several woodpeckers in the nest that toppled from the oak tree when it fell.
“They survived the fall,” Ventura County Firefighter Tyrone Hurley said. “They were four little redheads. We called animal control to take care of them.”
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