By Adam Hammer, staff writer

Korner Mart employee Heather Garcia and manager Dianne Stevens patiently waited in the dark Thursday morning while emergency and Alliant Energy personnel worked to restore power to their convenience store on Front Street.

Garcia and Stevens said they were told a bird landing on a power line outside their business caused the outage that left them in the dark for much of the morning.

Whatever it was, Stevens said it caused an explosion on the line that looked like fireworks.

&8220;It happened to be poor timing, because it happened when the fuel truck pulled in and then he couldn’t dump,&8221; she said.

And Korner Mart’s daily manager was on vacation in Alaska, Stevens said.

Truck driver Kelly Routh sat on the curb outside Korner Mart and waited.

The concern was that the vents and wind were blowing towards the power lines that were dangling down above the sidewalk that passed the station. Fumes and electrical shock could have caused a fire or explosion.

Once Alliant was able to cut the power to the lines, Routh was able to carry on with his duties.