Kamikaze bird behind Corran Ferry blackout

MORE than 300 homes were left without power on Saturday morning after a bird flew into overhead lines in the Corran Ferry area.

The majority of the houses were reconnected quickly after the incident early on Saturday morning but 50 customers experienced the blackout for up to five hours.

Duncan MacDonald, part of the media team for local energy company Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), said: ‘We would like to apologise to our customers in the Corran Ferry and Ardgour area who experi- enced disruption to their power around 9.30am on Saturday June 11. This was due to a bird flying into an overhead part of the equipment.

‘The incident itself disrupted power for 338 customers but because of the way the system is set up, within around 10 minutes SSE was able to reconnect most of these customers apart from 50 households.

‘Engineers attended the site and all power was restored just after 2.45pm on the Saturday.’

Regarding reports of a loud bang or explosion and sighting of smoke at the time of the power cut Mr MacDonald said: ‘The system is similar to that in your own home – when it detects a fault it switches off. If you think about in your home when the trip switch goes off, you can normally hear a bit of a loud click. So if you think of the size of our equipment, then the noise would be considerably louder.’

Mr MacDonald added that safety is number one priority at SSE, and he again apologised to customers on behalf of the company and said the problem was resolved as safely and quickly as possible.