Hawk’s nest causes local power outage

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

MILAN — Village of Milan residents may think a summer thunderstorm with massive lightning was the cause of a nearly four-hour power outage Wednesday night — they couldn’t be more wrong.

“A 36-inch-wide bird’s nest, sitting between two lines got drenching wet by the storm and caused an arc to form between the two lines creating the outage,” said Mac Juarez, spokesman for the Continental Divide Electric Cooperative Inc. in Grants.

The outage in parts of Milan was from about 8:45 p.m. to 12: 40 a.m., some part of the areas had power restored earlier by Continental Divide emergency crews.

The outage affected about 820 residential and business customers, Juarez said.

Continental crews had observed the hawk’s nest earlier this summer, but it was occupied at the time and so, following the company’s policy of not disturbing wildlife habitat, did not knock the nest down at that time, Juarez said.

The nest was on the two power lines near the old Anaconda Mine, about 10 miles north of Milan toward San Mateo off New Mexico Highway 605, Juarez said.

“When the crew re-energized the lines about 12:20 a.m., they only restored power to about half of the customers, waiting to see if the line would hold, or fail, requiring more work,” Juarez said. The remainder of the area’s power outage was completely restored at 12:40 a.m., he said.

The public is asked to call the cooperative's toll free number anytime day or night to report any outages: (877) 775-5211.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin, call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com.