Outage affects more than 13,000 residents
A bird flew into a transformer on Sunday, causing 13,500 customers to lose power in La Crescenta and Montrose from 8:27 a.m. to 9:15 a.m., Saturday, city officials said.
Workers cleaned and repaired the area at the Montrose substation within 45 minutes, said Ramon Abueg, Glendale Water and Power's electrical services administrator.
A bird that looked like a crow or a raven flew into a small gap on the transformer, which generates 34,000 volts of energy.
The incident resulted in outages at the city's Montrose and Glorietta substations, and large bolts on the transformer melting into a pool of metal.
"Not in my lifetime would I ever expect anything to get in there," Abueg said of the space where the bird landed.
Water and Power is upgrading equipment through its "Building Today for a Stronger Tomorrow" campaign to increase reliability in feeding power into residents' homes.
An upgrade will ensure that if another bird gets into a tight spot like the one on Saturday, it would only affect one substation, rather than knocking out a second, more remote substation, Abueg said.
