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Bird causes power outage affecting more than 1,700 in Newport News

Posted at 11:00 AM, Apr 11, 2014
and last updated 2014-04-11 11:48:31-04

UPDATE: Dominion Virginia Power crews are in the process of restoring power to the Hilton area, officials say. Their goal is to get all the lights back on around 12 p.m. on Friday, April 11.

Newport News, Va. – More than 1,700 customers were without power Friday morning due to a bird becoming entangled in some electrical equipment, according to Bonita Harris of Dominion Virginia Power.

It happened at 7:05 a.m. on Friday, April 11. A little more than 1,700 customers, including Hilton Elementary School and a police precinct were affected.

The bird became entangled in the equipment near Warwick Blvd. and Main Street near the railroad tracks, Harris says. It damaged the circuit breakers, which blew two transformer fuses.

Crews are on the scene, testing the transformer to find out how much damage there is. This requires something called an internal combustion test. If the results show that crews can make repairs on the scene, the outage will last about two hours. But if the transformer has to be completely replaced, it could take much longer, Dominion says. There is no estimated time of restoration at this time.

Stay with NewsChannel 3 for updates as they are available.