Community Corner

Mylar Balloon Kills Power to 7,000 Northeast L.A. Residents

Power was restored to most residents at around midnight.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power officials are blaming a mylar balloon for an outage that left about 7,000 Northeast Los Angeles residents without power from late Thursday night into early Friday morning. 

The outage was sparked at about 6 p.m. and lasted until power was restored to about 5,000 Mount Washington, Cypress Park and Glassell Park residents at midnight, said LADWP media representative Stephanie Interiano. She said remaining 2,000 customers got their power back at around 3:30 a.m.

As of Friday afternoon, though, some Glassell Park residents had reported continued temporary outages.

Find out what's happening in Highland Park-Mount Washingtonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"These metallic balloons conduct energy, so they can cause a power line to arc just by touching them," Interiano said. "If a mylar balloon flies up in the air and hits a power line, it can be a big problem. That's why they are required to be sold with plastic weights on the bottom."


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