Featured Story

Electri-Gull failure

By Julie Lane

 

WILLIAM McGORRY PHOTO | The gull who bit through an electric wire — a piece of it still in the bird’s mouth — causing its death and a blackout of the whole Island Thursday.
WILLIAM McGORRY PHOTO | The gull who bit through an electric wire — a piece of it still in the bird’s mouth — in Silver Beach causing its death and a blackout of the whole Island Thursday.

Thursday afternoon’s blackout that knocked out power for 2,215 customers was caused by a seagull that chewed through wires at West Neck Road at Brander Parkway and Bootleggers Alley.

The bird didn’t survive the attack on the wires, according to PSEG spokesman Jeffrey Weir, and confirmed by Silver Beach resident William McGorry’s photograph of the gull.

The outage started about 2:10 p.m. PSEG reported that 1,274 customers had power restored within seven minutes with 829 more back on line within eight minutes.

Another 112 customers were out of power for an hour and 15 minutes.

[email protected]

Related Content