By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
HOULTON — While many were home enjoying the long, Memorial Day weekend, electricity crews from Bangor Hydro Electric Company and Houlton Water Company were busy repairing power outages.
In southern Aroostook County, an abandoned osprey nest was blamed for a disruption in service to an estimated 2,200 Bangor Hydro Electric Company customers Sunday.
Electrical service was interrupted just before noon to 2,897 homes and businesses in the towns of Island Falls, Oakfield, Patten, Sherman and Ludlow, according to Bob Potts of Bangor Hydro. Service to 646 customers in Ludlow and Oakfield was restored by 1:30 p.m. Power was restored to the other customers affected at 2:20 p.m.
Potts said an abandoned osprey nest blowing off a pole, onto transmission lines, caused the outage. The transmission line involved was located in a heavily wooded area, requiring a repair crews to travel by foot, which further complicated the repairs.
Power was also disrupted at Ricker Plaza in Houlton Saturday morning. According to Houlton Water Company president John Clark, a fault in one of the underground wires to the facility caused an outage at 8:20 a.m. Saturday. Crews repaired a fuse, but the line went out a second time at 9:20 a.m. A temporary fix was installed. Clark said repair crews replaced a line to the building on Sunday morning.
Unrelated, an equipment failure at one of HWC’s substations caused a power outage Sunday morning in the Avon and Fair streets area. That outage lasted for about three hours.
