Culprit In Peabody Power Outage Was A Mylar Balloon

PEABODY, MA — An hour-long power outage in West Peabody over the weekend could have been avoided, according to Peabody Municipal Light Plant. That's because it was caused by a Mylar balloon, those helium-filled fixtures at summer celebrations that seem to take forever to deflate. The balloon — which is also a great conductor of electricity — got caught in power lines and caused the outage.

"Please remember that Mylar balloons are a conductor of electricity. If they are improperly released into the air, they can get entangled in electric lines and cause problems," the city's publicly-owned electric utility said in a Facebook post. "That's what happened over the weekend, and caused an outage in West Peabody. Our PMLP line workers were able to resolve the problem in less than an hour, and power was restored to air conditioners, fans, pool filters, etc., but this unplanned outage could have been avoided."