Power Back on in Idaho Falls; Cause = Balloons

(IDAHO FALLS, ID)  —  Power has finally been restored to Downtown Idaho Falls, and customers north of town.  Close to 6,000 customers were in the dark since 9:52 Friday morning when something tripped a main circuit that fed three substations.  According to Idaho Falls Power spokesman Van Ashton, the line failure was probably caused by a few Mylar balloons that were found in a few of the power lines.

The outage sent some student home early as the District allowed kids at A.H. Bush Elementary School to go home after lunch.  The Idaho Falls campus of Idaho State University also cancelled classes for the day.   Traffic signals were affected through the time spent down, and The City of Idaho Falls scrambled to get temporary Stop signs at most busy intersections in the downtown area.   There were no reported incidents or injuries during the three-plus hours that power was out.