Owl knocks out power, TV service in Eastern Iowa
LNT | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Who was the culprit responsible knocking much of the area's broadcast television off the air early Tuesday?
An owl that landed on a power pole in northern Linn County and was itself lit up, knocking out electrical service to about 1,200 Alliant Energy customers and the transmission towers used by three local TV stations, said Ryan Stensland, Alliant spokesman. Stensland said the owl landed on the apparatus connecting the power line to a pole between Coggon and Walker.
"The owl got hung up in there and caused the line to trip" at 4:23 a.m., Stensland said.
The outage affected about 1,200 customers in the WalkerCoggon area, including the broadcast towers for KCRGTV9 and KGAN-CBS2, which share a tower near Walker, and KWWL, which broadcasts from a tower near Rowley. KCRG-TV9 switched to generator backup, allowing the station to continue broadcasting its basic signal although the high-definition digital service was lost. KCRG's backup failed about 5:15 a.m., knocking out the analog signal until Alliant service was restored.
KGAN also lost its HD signal, although it continued to broadcast its basic signal on standby power, said General Manager Bill Evans.
KWWL was off the air until 5:50 a.m.
Service was restored to residential customers by 6:20 a.m., Stensland said.
"There wasn't much left of the owl, unfortunately," he said.
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