A big flock of birds gathers in the field south of Muller Lane on Sunday morning just a few hours before a third 1,500-customer power outage centered on the Muller Lane substation.
Photo by Kurt Hildebrand.
Genoa, Nev. — There was a third 1,500-customer outage in seven days out of the Muller Lane Substation around 1:58 p.m. Sunday. Power was restored by 3 p.m. I sent a note to NV Energy, but I wager the answer will once more be birds.
What if Gardnerville’s grasshopper scourge is the root cause of these outages? My working theory is that grasshoppers migrated west to the fields, and birds followed to gobble them up. There was a huge flock just south of Muller Lane on Sunday.
It took around four hours to clear the hay bales out of the turn lane onto Highway 88 from 395 on Sunday. The fatal motorcycle collision on Interstate 580 took three hours to investigate and clear, so they were done around 3 p.m., according to the Nevada State Police board.
Nothing new has been released on the leaky package that shut down the Minden Post Office and sent a couple of employees for medical treatment. I don’t expect we’ll hear an answer on what the substance was very soon, but it won’t be because we didn’t ask.
With zero precipitation in Minden this month, July 2023 will join two dozen of its predecessors in the record books. July is not a particularly wet month in Carson Valley, and thunderstorms have a habit of missing the gauge in the county seat.
Today’s forecast calls for sunny skies with a high of 92 degrees. The zephyr will pick up out of the west at 10-15 mph, gusting to 25 mph.
Kurt Hildebrand is editor of The Record-Courier. Contact him at khildebrand@recordcourier.com or 775-782-5122.
