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Mylar Balloon Cuts Power In West Rogers Park

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Jul 31, 2008 9:41 am US/Central

Mylar Balloon Cuts Power In West Rogers Park

330 Customers Affected

CHICAGO (STNG) ― A Mylar balloon that made contact with an electrical line knocked out power to about 330 Commonwealth Edison customers early Thursday in the North Side's West Rogers Park community.

A Mylar balloon made contact with a ComEd electrical line near Western and Fargo avenues at 1:02 a.m. and knocked out power to about 332 customers, ComEd spokesman Jeff Burdick said. Power was restored at 1:30 a.m.

Rogers Park District police said the outage stretched along Western Avenue between Touhy Avenue and Howard Street. The outage affected most residential buildings and did not affect streetlights, police said.

Burdick said Mylar balloons, which have a higher metallic content than rubber balloons, have knocked out power to about 20,000 ComEd customers this year.

"The balloons cause a surge…and can cause lines to fail or fall down," Burdick said.

There were no reports of injuries during the outage, police said.

(Source: Sun-Times News Group Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2009. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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