Suicide Squirrels Short Substations

Once again, a coordinated series of suicide attacks on electric substations has been launched by the ravening rodents of the Animal Uprising™. This time they hit in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and in Pendleton, Oregon.

An Xcel energy representative says around one o'clock a squirrel caused equipment problems at their substation in Hallie, triggering a power loss on the North side of Eau Claire that stretched from Melby to 40th avenue.

"We were doing our regular business and all of a sudden about one o'clock all the lights went off and everything went off," JimBob's Pizza shift manager Dawn Lium said. (Ed. Note: This is generally what happens when the electricity goes out, so we aren't real sure what value this added to the story. Other than a plug for JimBob's, of course.)

"We got a call from Xcel energy they have a substation shortage or outage so it's pretty much the North part of 53," Jerry Tomesh of the Department of Transportation said.

…

PENDLETON, Ore. - A squirrel got into a PacifiCorp substation in Pendleton, cutting power Monday night to nearly 3,400 customers.

Initially, 1,571 customers were affected, but to repair the damage, crews had to disconnect additional users.

The outage took place at 5:43 p.m. The utility said many customers were restored by 8:15 p.m. and all were back up by midnight. (Ed. Note: No mention of whether JimBob was affected.)

The problem with squirrels, of course, is that they are fine conductors of electricity. One of our informants tells us that utilities are investigating the possibility of manufacturing cable out of squirrels, in fact. He is one of our less coherent informants, however, so we aren't sure how accurate that information is. However, if you notice an attractive pelt on the wires running through your neighborhood, remember that you heard it here first!