Our pals at Gawker forward this tip from reader Audrey Bath about a bizarre power outage affecting casinos and hotels in Las Vegas for the past couple of days — sounds uncannily like a scene from a recent movie filmed at the affected property:
I thought you might be amused to learn that Las Vegas’ premiere hotel, the 5-star Bellagio Hotel, lost all power at 2:30am Sunday (Easter) and power has not yet been restored. As of right now, there is no access to their website, and no updated information. It is THE big story in Las Vegas.
No definitive word yet on why no power, but it appears a truck hit a transformer behind the hotel, on the new Frank Sinatra Drive. The hotel is said to have been 2/3 full (2,000 guests) and thousands of employees have not been able to go to work. All of the hotels’ restaurants are closed, every gaming table and slot machine is dark, even the fountains are not operating. There are no elevators, no escalators, no Cirque du Soleil. Only the Bellagio Hotel is affected by the outage, and generators have not kicked in. (It’s eerily like “Ocean’s Eleven” which was filmed in part at the hotel 3 years ago.)
Some guests have insisted on remaining at the dark hotel; all others have been transferred to the “sister properties” like the Mirage, Treasure Island and MGM Grand. My husband is a chef at Picasso, the top restaurant in Las Vegas, located at the Bellagio, and he was told not to return to work tomorrow because power will not be back on. Power is not expected to be restored until possibly late Monday night. It’s a very weird scene.
Link to story in Las Vegas Review-Journal