Probably couldn’t see from all of the steel shot in its mellon. 
Chris Woodard
KTTC TV
ROCHESTER, MN — An animal that lost it’s way leaves hundreds in the dark for hours.
Rochester Public Utilities spent much of the evening trying to restore power for a major chunk of town.
It was an awfully quiet night for much of Southeast Rochester, and actually being in the area was a little bit eerie because of the complete lack of light.
The outage was obviously a problem for hundreds of residential customers, but businesses in that area of town might have had the biggest complications.
K-mart loss prevention associate Jeff Kruger says, “I was actually back in the office doing paperwork and then all of a sudden power went out they said that they saw huge flashes all around town.”
K-mart was just one of many businesses that had to usher out customers and lock their doors when a wayward goose flew into transformer in downtown Rochester blowing power for more than 12-hundred customers. At the downtown Subway food became the biggest concern.
Subway employee Mike Kranz says, “We have to make sure that the lids are all on the food in the front and we have to make sure that we don’t open up the coolers in the back.”
As crews scrambled to get the power turned back on many drivers were left to figure out busy intersections on their own without the help of traffic lights.
Kranz says, “It’s been pretty bad, you know I don’t want to have anyone come over here because it will be like an hour before they get here, I almost saw three accidents happen.”
RPU’s Tony Benson says power outages because of animals are not unheard of but the combination of a goose and the large amount of customers who lost total power make this an unusual situation, and one that surprised many residents.
The outage started just before 5 o’clock tonight and some downtown locations were back in service by 6, but power wasn’t completely restored until about 7.
With those times being at the tail end of rush hour the downtown area sort of resembled a major metropolitan spot with all the backed up traffic but for the most part it seems like drivers did a pretty good job of dealing with the conditions.
Updated: December 6, 2006, 9:20 pm
