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Balloons Cause Power Outage In Atlantic City

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) -- A cluster of metallic-coated balloons that came in contact with electrical wires knocked out power to much of Atlantic City for three hours.

Sunday evening's outage affected 5,200 customers, had police manually directing traffic, and forced a casino hotel tower to use an emergency generator.

An Atlantic City Electric spokeswoman says the balloons became entangled with part of a major feeder line, causing a power surge that triggered a system shutdown around 5:30 p.m.

The spokeswoman says crews made the appropriate adjustments and the power came back on at 8:39 p.m.

The Press of Atlantic City reported congregants at a Presbyterian church who had been singing Christmas carols simply carried on with flashlights and candles.

(Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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