Rat Ruins 'American Idol' For Thousands
http://www.local6.com/news/9280824/detail.html
POSTED: 1:41 pm EDT May 26, 2006
UPDATED: 1:43 pm EDT May 26, 2006
RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- About 9,500 Riverside residents found themselves in the dark after a rat chewed through power equipment at a substation.
The rodent had to gnaw through two barriers before it reached the 12,000-volt equipment that it shorted out on Tuesday night, Public Utilities deputy director Steve Badgett said.
"We found him. What was left of him," Badgett said.
The rat made it to the live wires despite traps and rat poison placed in the substation, he said.
Some 1,100 customers went without power until early Wednesday morning.
Badgett said he braced for the worst when he realized that residents lost their power just as the semifinalists of "American Idol" were to perform on television.
A couple of weeks ago, we did have a bunch of bad weather go through and the local weather guy held up broadcasting for 45 minutes while he and the other one (from some ofhet location-home I guess) chatted about the bad weather that MAY hit Springfield, MO. We were livid but we didn't call in. Apparently, a LOT of people did. They showed the full broadcast at 10:00 instead of Seinfeld. The other day when it was the finals, we had more bad weather. Hubby said "if they butt in now then I AM going to call." They did butt in but they waited for the comercials to come on and then it was an on then right off announcement - and there was (possible) tornado warnings then too. LOLOL