Bird To Blame For Peninsula Power Outage That Affected Thousands, PG&E Says [UPDATED]

More than 2,000 people who without power on the Peninsula on Thursday morning have the lights back on, PG&E reports. The outage was centered in the area of I-280 in Los Altos Hills and was apparently caused by a bird, a PG&E spokeswoman said.

According to Mayra Tostado of PG&E, the outage occurred at 8:35 a.m. and affected 2,130 residences and businesses at the peak. Power was restored quicker than planned, though. Tostado says that all but four customers had their power back by shortly after 9:32 a.m.

The outage encompassed an area off Interstate Highway 280, including Foothill-De Anza College.

"The bird was found at the scene," Tostado said.

The incident caused the transformer to fail, she said, initially knocking out power to 1,120 customers and then another 1,000. Power was restored to most of the affected customers at 9:32 a.m., Tostado said; however, power was still out for four customers at 11:15 a.m. and was expected to be restored sometime Thursday afternoon.

Meanwhile, a separate outage occurred in the region earlier Thursday, when power went out for some 2,000 customers in Sunnyvale when a power pole caught fire.

Image via PG&E outage center / Patch editor Maggie Avants contributed to this report.