NV Energy workers replace a power pole along Highway 395 south of Gardnerville on Oct. 26.
Photo by Kurt Hildebrand.
Update: A power outage that affected about half the homes and businesses in Douglas County on Saturday night appears to have been caused by a bird, NV Energy spokeswoman Meghin Delaney said on Monday morning.
The final count for the number of power company customers affected by the 8:06 p.m. outage was 14,384. Power was restored by 11:17 p.m.
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More than 14,000 homes and businesses in Douglas County were affected by a widespread power outage for longer than three hours on Saturday night.
The Record-Courier has reached out to NV Energy about the cause of the outage listed on the company’s website which began at 8:07 p.m.
The outage affected roughly half the power company's customers in Douglas.
According to the site, the outage affected 4,522 customers in the Gardnerville Ranchos, 2,891 customers in the Gardnerville ZIP code, with 2,125 in Minden’s. Another 3,171 customers were affected at Lake Tahoe and 1,053 in the Indian Hills and Clear Creek area.
There was no report of an incident that could be linked to causing the outage, but the outage itself prompted a few calls.
The outage disabled the traffic signal at Riverview and Highway 395.
A resident called East Fork medics because they were running low on oxygen.
Minden Tahoe Airport’s automated weather system recorded a few 21 mph wind gusts shortly after the outage, but nothing strong enough to knock out a power line.
While widespread, the outage skipped portions of Carson Valley, including Genoa and some locations just north of Minden, according to residents.
