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Bird causes power outage for thousands in southern Alberta

Thousands of customers lost power in Pincher Creek, Alta. Friday, July 7, 2017. Fortis / Google Maps

Thousands of southern Alberta residents were without power for hours Friday—because of a bird.

AltaLink spokesperson Scott Schreiner told Global News a bird flew into a transformer at the Pincher Creek substation at around 10 a.m. Friday.

Every orange dot on the map above represents an outage.

The transformer itself was also damaged, so work was underway to shift the power output to a different transformer on-site Friday afternoon.

As many as 5,000 people were without power at one point, down to 194 customers in the Pincher Creek area by 3:45 p.m., with hopes they would be reconnected by 8 p.m.

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