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Balloon hits power line, causes over 12K customers to briefly lose power
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A balloon participating in the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta hit a power line, causing over 12,000 customers to lose electricity Monday morning.
No one was reported injured.
At about 8 a.m., a balloon “bumped into a power line” in the Claremont and Stanford area, causing an hour and a half outage, PNM spokesperson Eric Chavez said.
Balloon Fiesta spokesperson Tom Garrity said only the pilot was in the Master Blaster balloon at the time of the incident and there were no reported injuries.
“Thank you for your patience as crews worked to get the power back on,” a PNM social media post states.
Chavez said if people see a balloon hit a power line, they should call 911.
“People naturally want to go to help, but in this situation they should stay away,” he said. “Assume anything hitting a power line is energized. They should not touch it so crews and first responders can get on site as soon as possible.”
For more safety tips, Chavez said people can visit https://www.pnm.com/hot-air-balloon-safety.
