Winged thing outs power to 375 homes

A wayward bird caused a power outage in Costa Mesa early Monday that affected 3,100 residents.

The outage occurred just after midnight, and most people had their lights turned back on in less than a minute.

But about 375 residences south of the San Diego (405) Freeway and west of Harbor Boulevard were without power until 3 p.m. Monday.

Southern California Edison spokesperson Paul Klein said it was unclear exactly how the bird damaged the system.

“It created some type of condition that caused the pole to go down,” he said of the accident, which took place at Iowa Street and Michigan Place.

Although the original outage lasted only 38 seconds, power had to be switched off again briefly at 2 a.m. to allow crews to work on the line, Klein said.