More than 120 Canyon Country residents, businesses and a school were left without power for up to three hours Friday as a result of electrical transformer explosion. “There was an equipment failure on our line that caused the transformer to go out,” said Ernie Villegas, spokesman for Southern California Edison. The transformer, located in the 20400 block of Delight Street, exploded around noon, Villegas said. Though originally thought to be caused by a house fire, Villegas said Edison later determined the fire did not cause the transformer explosion. “I don’t know if a bird flew in the line but the fuse opened and it caused the outage,” Villegas said. “We had some customers that were out for an hour, others up to three hours.” Rio Vista Elementary School was affected as were other businesses in the surrounding area. Numerous traffic signals were affected along Soledad Canyon Road and a non-injury collision occurred at Soledad Canyon Road and Golden Valley Triangle. Sheriff’s deputies were not able to determine if the power outage was the cause of the collision. Edison crews were sent to assess the damage and restore power. “When we have outages, as a reminder to people, the four-way stop applies (at traffic signals). People need to be very careful,” Villegas said.
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