Squirrels Briefly Kill Power in 2 Cities

[Jahfin]

ASHLAND, Wis. (AP) — It was an unlucky day for two squirrels and hundreds of Midwestern power customers.

Brian Elwood, a spokesman for Xcel Energy, said a squirrel came in contact with an overhead transformer and knocked out service to 177 customers Monday. Power was fully restored in just under an hour, and repair crews found the remains of the "unfortunate squirrel," he said.

By coincidence, another squirrel got into a substation 40 miles away in Ironwood, Mich., Monday morning and caused a temporary outage that affected about 1,400 customers in Ironwood and two nearby communities, Elwood said.

The utility takes many preventive steps to keep the curious animals away from lines, he said, but they are one of the leading causes of outages, trailing only severe weather.

"We kind of liken it to anyone who's had a bird feeder and tried to keep the squirrels out," he said. "They find a way."

Rodney Johnson was stuck on an elevator at the city's Enterprise Center, where he works, when the power went out.

"For a couple of minutes there, I wasn't sure if I'd make it to Thanksgiving," said Johnson, who said he is somewhat claustrophobic. "They kept talking to me while they were trying to open it up, though, so that helped."

Once a firefighter opened the door, Johnson wasted no time in getting out.

"I'm surprised I didn't knock him down," he said.

[manderlyh]

My dog once ran a squirrel into a transistor. It knocked out power for most of the day.

He gets soo excited when he sees a squirrel. My sister and I used to say, "BUDDY! SQUIRREL!" and he'd just freak out! Now, he's so old that he can't hear you say that, even if we are yelling.

Just the word squirrel would get him all riled up.

Edited November 22, 2007 by manderlyh

[Levee]

Just the word squirrel would get him all riled up.

That sounds like a wonderful dog to me.

[manderlyh]

But he is!

He's close to 16 years old now! He's an awesome dog!

He's Buddy--the Squirrel Hunter