Mardi Gras Float Confetti Cannon Causes Power Outage By Blowing Transformer, But Doesn't Stop The Party

Mardi Gras season is in full swing and nothing is going to stop the party. Not even a power outage!

As some of the bigger parades get underway this weekend, nearly 2,000 buildings along the St. Charles Avenue portion of the Uptown parade route lost power on Friday night. Entergy, the city's power and electric company, initially reported that the outage was caused by a car striking a pole.

However, video from the parade route appears to tell a different story.

As a large float made its way down the route, it fired a confetti cannon that was strapped to the front. Many confetti cannons during Mardi Gras contain mylar, which may have been the case on Friday.

Whatever material it was, the confetti shot from the cannon and connected with a transformer on the side of the road. The transformer immediately blew and the lights went out across the whole block.

Parades were halted temporarily, but rolled on after a brief stoppage. No power is necessary to party!

Although the video makes it pretty hard to claim that the blown transformer didn't directly correlate to the confetti cannon, Entergy remains uncertain. A spokesperson told WWL-TV on Saturday that the crew on the ground reported damage to the pole. The damage was caused by a car hitting the pole.

With that said, the spokesperson said that he/she saw the confetti cannon video and could not rule out that the float was responsible for the power outage. It's pretty hard to make a case that it wasn't.

The transformer blew and the power went out almost immediately after the confetti cannon fired. Nobody else had evidence of a car hitting a pole. Seems mighty obvious!