‘The culprit: a cluster of helium balloons with metallic tails that became entangled in power lines near the stadium shortly before the game, New York State Electric & Gas spokesman Randy Edwards said. Edwards said several chauffeurs in the stadium parking lot saw the balloons become entangled at about 12:45 p.m. “They actually heard and saw the smoke from where they hit the transformers,” Edwards said. The balloons caused two outages during the first half of the game as utility workers struggled to get power flowing to about 800 customers in the area – including Ralph Wilson Stadium. The company switched to secondary power lines, but the same balloons soon caused problems with those lines, and power had to be switched back to the primary lines, Edwards said. A utility pole fire about a mile from the stadium – believed to be unrelated to the tangled balloons – also complicated efforts to restore power, Edwards said.’