A squirrel in a Virginia substation caused a blackout
It happened around 8:45 a.m. on Sept. 7, according to a tweet from Bonita Harris, a spokeswoman for Dominion Energy, which supplies electricity in Virginia and other states.
The outage affected over 10,000 Virginians, Harris said. Power was restored around 10 a.m
Harris told CNN that animals occasionally get stuck in the company’s substations, despite efforts to keep them out.
“Dominion Energy has standard equipment in place to keep squirrels and other animals safe when they are near our equipment,” Harris said. “This equipment greatly reduces the number of incidents, but sometimes certain small animals will still get in there.”
The squirrel did not survive the incident, Harris said, although sometimes animals get a brief shock and walk away largely unscathed.
Harris said workers quickly rerouted power to another source to keep as many customers’ lights on as possible.
