A goose might have left part of Basalt in the dark

Some customers of Holy Cross Energy in west Basalt have experienced power outages the past two days. The events originated in different places and are unrelated, but the causes are unknown, according to company spokesman Steve Casey.

An outage shortly before 7 a.m. Tuesday lasted about 45 minutes, Casey said. It affected roughly 560 customers in the Basalt and Willits area.

The outage Wednesday occurred shortly after 7 a.m. and affected thousands of customers over a broader area that included Basalt and Willits, he said.

The problem Tuesday came when protection equipment was triggered for a reason that couldn’t be determined. There was an issue with a distribution line that crosses the Roaring Fork River in West Basalt, Casey said. Crews were unable to find any explanation such as a fallen tree or limb.

There is a presumption that a large bird, perhaps a goose, came into contact with distribution lines and caused the protection equipment to activate, Casey said.

On Wednesday, a breaker was tripped for an unknown reason at a substation at Cooley Mesa east of Gypsum. That affected a transmission line so the magnitude of people with an outage Wednesday was in the thousands, Casey said. Fortunately it lasted less than five minutes.