Bird, Not Controversial New LDS Temple, To Blame For Cody Power Outages

The city of Cody confirmed Monday that a series of power outages hitting the northwest Wyoming town Sunday and Monday weren’t caused by the construction of a new Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Temple, but a bird that got itself fried by a power line.

Many people took to social media to blame the ongoing construction of a controversial 101-foot-tall Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temple for the power outages because of the church’s demands on the local energy grid.

Phillip Bowman, public works director for the city of Cody, said that’s just not true.

It was an unlucky bird that caused all the problems.

“It was the only thing we found that could’ve been the cause,” he said.

Bowman said it appears a bird caused an electrical arc when it made contact with an overhead power line in Cody on Sunday morning, causing a significant short, or break in the line. The bird was found dead at the scene along with burn marks on the electrical equipment seeming to confirm that’s what happened.

The high-voltage arc caused significant damage to multiple pieces of the city’s electrical equipment and created outages throughout parts of the city Sunday morning and evening. The problem continued through Monday morning with a number of businesses like Walmart and a local school impacted by “blips” of power loss or brief outages that the city crew worked to resolve, Bowman said.

Bowman said it’s likely a bigger bird caused the outage, but he didn’t know the exact type of avian species that was killed. 

“The fact that it was caused by the bird led to other damage in the system,” he explained. “There’s typically not this level of damage to the system and circuit.”

Bowman said his crew will continue to work on and monitor the issue, and as of Monday afternoon almost all power had been restored.

Not The Temple

Preserve Our Cody Neighborhoods, a group that opposed the construction of the temple in its chosen site, had a different take on the incident. 

The group claimed on Facebook that the city’s electrical department was “working feverishly all morning” at the temple site. The group said about two weeks ago there was a planned outage for the neighborhood near the temple site, at which time power lines appeared to be installed there.

Bowman said although both of these reports are true, it doesn’t mean the temple caused the outages Sunday and Monday.

He said the reason staff was out at the temple site Monday was because it had also lost power. The temple, which received final approval from a judge in August after being challenged in court, is not the cause or contributing to the outages. 

“It was not a result of or from a worsening of the energy supply because of the construction of the temple,” Bowman said.

Some on social media pointed to the fact that the church will draw significantly more energy than the average residential home.

Although this may be true, Bowman said the church isn’t even fully connected to the city’s energy grid yet and is hooked up to a temporary connection for its construction.

“Our crew is working with the contractor to get the necessary work completed,” Bowman said.

He said the church has planned how it will connect to the city’s energy grid without causing problems in its design plan.

Not The First Time

Animal-caused power outages are not an unheard of phenomenon in Wyoming.

In 2022, an unknown animal caused a significant power outage in Laramie.
Similar outages were also caused in Cody in 2022 and 2021 because of racoons.

Contact Leo Wofson at leo@cowboystatedaily.com

Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.