Lights Go Out in Hollywood on 3,500 Customers

Originally posted at 9:31 a.m. July 21, 2014. Edited with new details.

An electrical outage caused by metallic balloons hitting power lines affected about 3,500 Department of Water and Power customers in the Hollywood this morning.

The problem was reported about 12:25 a.m. near Melrose and Fairfax avenues, Gale Harris of the DWP said.

Michelle Vargas of the DWP said customers saw their service restored incrementally, with power returning to the last homes and businesses about 12 hours later about 12:40 p.m.

Metallic balloons can cause arcing that trips off some electrical circuits.

--City News Service