Bay View power outages caused by balloons amid lawmaker push to regulate
Bay View power outages caused by balloons
A power outage caused by balloons left thousands of homes and dozens of businesses in the dark in Milwaukee on Sunday, July 13.
MILWAUKEE - A power outage in Bay View left thousands of homes and dozens of businesses in the dark on Sunday, July 13.
But it wasn't Mother Nature that knocked the power out. It was Mylar balloons.
What we know:
We Energies said these balloons are metallic, so when they come in contact with a power line, it creates a short circuit. Even just one balloon can turn the lights out for thousands.
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What started like any other Sunday afternoon for Mary Kilpatrick quickly turned into chaos. She's the owner of the Community Bark Dog Wash & Groom in Bay View. So when the lights went out at her business, she had to go in.
"Sunday is usually my one day off, for sure [...] I got a notification from Spectrum on my phone that there was a power outage," Kilpatrick said. "My staff started reaching out to me and was like, ‘Oh my god, everything is out, what do we do, what do we do?’"
Dozens of other businesses in the area experienced the same outage, which was caused by a Mylar balloon.
"We couldn't do a thing," Kilpatrick said. "Blow dryers were out, so people couldn’t blow dry the dogs, lights were out so we couldn’t see all that well."
Dig deeper:
In Sunday's case, We Energies spokesperson Brendan Conway said around 2,000 customers lost power.
"The mylar balloons have metallic coding – when that comes in contact with a power line it creates a short circuit," Conway said.
We Energies said outages caused by Mylar balloons have left more than 14,000 people without power this year alone.
"It will kind of burn the line through," Conway said. "That unfortunately happens more than you might think."
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For businesses like Kilpatrick's, losing power means losing money.
"My goal would be is for people to understand that, you know, those things have consequences," she said. "I’d say we lost about $700. I can make money back, I can do that. It was inconvenient, but it wasn’t the end of the world – but I hate to think of people that live in that area that could’ve potentially been seriously affected by it medically."
What's next:
A bill introduced in Wisconsin would restrict people from releasing 10 or more Mylar balloons in the air. Violators would pay a $500 fine.
Wisconsin bill would regulate balloon releases across state
Wisconsin state lawmakers want to regulate the amount of mylar balloons people release outdoors.
Lawmakers will not vote on the bill until the fall.
The Source: The information in this post was collected and produced by FOX6 News.