Power Outage bit

Ahhh... it WAS a bird!!! Only in Frederick ....

From the Frederick News Post (I got the FNP!)
Power restored in Frederick
Originally published June 08, 2008

From Staff Reports

Power has been restored to more than 16,000 Allegheny Power customers in Frederick County, according to Allen Staggers, spokesman for the utility.

The outage was mainly contained to downtown Frederick and the Ballenger Creek Pike area (This is where we live).

Crews were alerted to the problem shortly after 6 p.m., he said. A bird flew into a substation and caused a short, Staggers said. The bird died. Frederick Memorial Hospital was also affected by the outage but functioned normally on back-up power, according to a spokesperson.

Officers with the Frederick Police Department placed flares at intersections to alert drivers the traffic signals were out, said Sgt. Mathew Burns.

He, along with his officers, saw outages all over downtown Frederick and along U.S. 40.

City Cab Co. was nearly crippled by the area’s power outage, co-owner Blaine Young said (omg - we have cabs?!!?).

“We’re dead, everything’s dead,” he said. “We’re operating on a back-up phone system, but we’re going back to the way the cab business was in the 1940s.”

Drivers communicated with each other via cell phones, and they met in zones throughout the city to keep customer service as smooth as possible.

“All our technology is useless, our computer dispatch is down, everything is down,” Young said. “This really caught us by surprise.”

The office was operating on battery and auxiliary power, he said. “We’re trying to do the best we can, we hope people can be patient.”

The Summer Concert Series at the Baker Park Bandshell was also interrupted Sunday. The Scott Ambush contemporary jazz band was playing and couldn’t continue due to a sudden power outage in downtown Frederick.

The 72 Play Fest final performance has also been postponed due to the outage with the performance rescheduled for June 22.