Thousands lose power in South Dakota after bird drops snake into substation

New York Post ^ | September 17, 2020 | Aaron Feis

[CheshireTheCat]

You never know when you are going to lose power and why.

[Sacajaweau]

Substations are afraid of snakes....Who knew??

[EEGator]

The snake must have hit two lines at the same time.
I would be amazed if it’s not dead.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

From the article:

Earlier this year, hundreds of households in Scotland lost power after bull with an “itchy bum” rubbed up against an electrical pole, knocking down a transformer.

And in 2017, residents of Prince Albert, Canada were taken offline when a beaver gnawed through a pole, weakening it enough for strong winds to ultimately bring it down.

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Sheesh, all we get is outages caused by windstorms knocking trees onto power lines (three weeks ago - 8 hours) and drunks hitting power poles (last week - 2 hours). Avista does a great job getting us going again.

[headstamp 2]

When I worked for the local power company, it was always squirrels blowing out the cutouts without squirrel shields attached.

[nickcarraway]

Antifa bird?

[freedumb2003]

>>I would be amazed if it’s not dead.<<

Or it has mutated into a giant electric hydra dragon.

[blueunicorn6]

Ahhhhh.....the old snake bomb.

[Olog-hai]

“I’ve had enough of these &#£€%£&$!@ing snakes in this @#&$€£$#%ing substation!”

[ocrp1982]

Lol. When I lived in Southeast Asia we would lose power with some regularity when Pythons would climb power poles and bridge across the lines. You could hear the power transformers explode and then, power loss.

[SamAdams76]

Sometimes we lose power due to a squirrel chewing something in one of the transformers that are up on the utility poles.

Squirrels are a real menace. But many of them do get run over by cars. The average driver will run over a squirrel every six years. Given that there are 240 million motorists in the USA - that translates into 40,000,000 squirrels getting run over every year.

Now that's a lot of squirrels getting run over by cars.

[EEGator]

That would be sweet.

[EEGator]

[jmacusa]

Whoa! I bet the US Air Force would like to talk to that bird. That was the money shot alright.

[LIConFem]

So, do we blame the bird or the snake? Or was it a conspiracy?

[jmacusa]

“Or it has mutated into a giant electric hydra dragon’’. Oh crap! Now we’re done for. Quick, lock the doors, nail boards at irregular angles across the windows!

[ThunderSleeps]

Ditto. How is that thing no vaporized into charcoal dust?

[oldasrocks]

The bird was just trying to cook his lunch and teach people that electric BBQ grills work,

[EEGator]

No clue. I’ve seen Canadian geese “melted” to a transformer cutout.
That snake hit the lines at the head of a distribution circuit.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Gee whiz if I had a nickel for every time that has happened to me …