Crow cuts Halifax power to 11,000

A crow that contacted equipment at a Nova Scotia Power substation knocked out electricity to about 11,000 customers on the Halifax peninsula Monday morning. (cbc.ca) Nova Scotia Power said the outage began shortly after 9 a.m. Atlantic and crews restored service about an hour later, around 10 a.m. (cbc.ca) The failure started at a substation, the fenced site where utilities step electricity down from high-voltage lines so homes, apartments and businesses can use it. When an animal bridges two energized parts, it can create a short circuit and trip protection systems. (cbc.ca) That kind of outage can spread quickly because substations feed dense urban neighborhoods through multiple circuits. Halifax’s affected area included a large stretch of the peninsula, where customer counts climb fast even when the fault is confined to one site. (cbc.ca) Utilities try to prevent animal contacts with covers, spacing, guards and insulated equipment, but birds and squirrels still cause outages when they reach exposed hardware. Nova Scotia Power has dealt with crow-related outages before, including one Halifax incident CBC reported in 2016. (cbc.ca 1) (cbc.ca 2) Other outages this weekend came from very different causes. In Penn Yan, New York, a transformer fire on Flatt Street cut power to the northern part of the village around 12:30 p.m. Sunday before electricity was restored by about 2:30 p.m. (fingerlakes1.com) (fingerlakesdailynews.com) At Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, a fire at an electrical substation shortly after 11:30 p.m. Friday caused a campus-wide outage that pushed in-person classes online Monday and Tuesday. (wgal.com) (theslateonline.com) In southeastern Wisconsin, We Energies reported more than 51,000 customers without power Sunday afternoon after a rainstorm. By Monday evening, the utility said crews had restored service to more than 35,000 customers. (jsonline.com) (wisn.com) Halifax’s outage was shorter and smaller than those broader weather failures, but it showed how a single contact at one substation can still darken a city neighborhood in minutes. (cbc.ca)