WINCHESTER — There have been multiple intermittent power outages between Nov. 13 and Nov. 18 between Quincy and Ephrata. The Grant Public Utility District began investigating the outages which were impacting the Winchester area with patrols searching for the problem. After several days of searching and a two-night investigation, the district believes it has discovered the culprit — itchy cows.
“Every time we received a call, our crew would go out and try to find the problem,” Grant PUD Public Information Officer Christine Pratt said. “But because the system automatically resets, automatically re-energizes after a few minutes, when it no longer senses a fault exists. By the time our crew got out to the scene, they couldn’t find a problem because the grid had already reset and re-energized in that area. And so this went on for days.”
The first cow-related outage was reported to the PUD on Nov. 13. Grant PUD began searching for the cause throughout the week, according to its statement. Then the following week on Nov. 18 there was a reported flash seen from the electric equipment. However, the district was pretty sure the cows were behind the incident…