Downtown Boise went dark Tuesday night when nearly 8,000 customers lost power
Boise bars and restaurants closed early Tuesday night and residents were also without electricity when an unexpected power outage hit a swath of downtown Boise and part of Garden City.
The outage began at 8:47 p.m. and affected about 7,890 customers, according to Idaho Power spokesperson Alexis Freeman. Crews fixed the issue by about 11:07 p.m., Freeman said.
Freeman said Wednesday morning that Idaho Power did not know specifically what caused the problem.
“We had some sort of line interference that caused the outage,” Freeman told the Idaho Statesman by email. “We are still investigating to determine the exact cause.”
Freeman said line interference can be caused by a number of things, including a tree branch falling on a line.
“During an outage, our No. 1 goal is to safely restore power to our customers, then we inspect the line for any damage or anything that needs to be fixed,” Freeman said. “In some cases of line interference, we’re unable to determine an exact cause.”
The outage turned out the lights at many Boise establishments along Idaho and Main streets near the 8th Street corridor, part of which also lost power. Many traffic lights along those two main downtown thoroughfares were out as well, creating an eerie-looking downtown with dark buildings as a backdrop.
