Here’s What Caused The Duluth Power Outage Wednesday

Well, this morning was definitely an interesting morning. Power went out approximately at 6:45am on Wednesday morning in many places in Duluth. That includes our studios and other media companies in Downtown Duluth. We were able to stay on the air for a while as we have backup power systems, but those only last so long. The Minnesota Power Outage site estimated power would be restored originally at 8:45am. It was later updated to say 9:30 for some areas.

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Crews found the issue. A raven got caught in a substation, causing main lines to be tripped. They announced the information on twitter. I'll share a picture below, but warning, the raven didn't make it.

Then shortly after that they corrected the information to say it was a substation, not feeder.

We got our power back at about 8:45 downtown. All power was restored by 8:50am. The cause of the power outage was that large raven, and I even got an actual picture of it.

Usually it's a squirrel or something that causes these problems when they happen. Unfortunately the outcome is never good for animals that come in contact with a transformer or substation.

Fortunately crews got us power back before the rest of the day was shot around here. We're up an running and we will be starting our Grand Country Nights contest tomorrow now at 8:20 as we were off the air today when we originally were going to start.