Squirrel Blamed for San Jose Power Outage

NBC Bay Area ^ | Wednesday, Mar 19, 2014

[nickcarraway]

A squirrel caused a power outage that left nearly 1,200 PG&E customers in San Jose without power Wednesday morning, a utility spokeswoman said.

The outage was first reported around 8:20 a.m. and affected 1,180 customers in the city's College Park neighborhood, according to PG&E spokeswoman Monica Tell.

She said a squirrel came into contact with some PG&E equipment in the area, causing the outage.

One of the customers affected was Caltrain's San Jose dispatching center, according to Tell. The outage caused the dispatching center to fail and led trains to stop, causing major system-wide delays.

The area impacted was bounded by The Alameda, Taylor, Ashbury and Stockton. The SJ Unified School District office and Caltrain were both impacted by the outage, Tell said.

Power was restored by around 11 a.m.

[Army Air Corps]

This really is a case of “Look! Squirrel!”

[dfwgator]

[dainbramaged]

I’ve seen electrocuted bald eagles more than once in Alaska.

[Starstruck]

Is the squirrel all right?

[Starstruck]

Is the squirrel all right? Meant this for you

[Telepathic Intruder]

Have they checked for ties to Al Qaeda?

[gaijin]

The heart of electron-based wealth creation in California is San Jose.

And in San Jose, ALL those electrons can be stopped.

BY A SQUIRREL.

What success might be met by, say, a committed terrorist group...?

[mikrofon]

a squirrel came into contact with some PG&E equipment in the area,
causing the outage

Now just hokey smoke, Bullwinkle ....

[Army Air Corps]

Isn’t that the eternal, existential question?

[FlJoePa]

[mabarker1]

Came into work one morning and had no power in the store so I start checking breakers/voltage until I end up out back at the meter- no power there either, turn around and look up the pole to the transformer (3 Phase) and on one of the lines feeding the meter loop off the transformer is an Owl zotted to the wire hanging upside down with one leg blown off.

I yelled at it “Your grounded!”

Then I called the Power Co.

When the guy showed up He said “Well I’ve never see THAT before”

[ErnBatavia]

Several years ago, a woodpecker put his pecker where it shouldn't have atop a power pole -- and about three square blocks went out.

I still remember seeing it's charred carcass at the base of the pole.

[Hot Tabasco]

[Flag_This]

[TheThirdRuffian]

"Is the squirrel all right?"

Yes, but the moose bit my sister.

[Duckdog]

Theres got to be a story behind that picture.

[Duckdog]

I’ve seen squirrels blow up.

[Starstruck]

Is the squirrel alright?
Isn’t that the eternal, existential question?

I thought that was "Is the beaver alright?"

[Flag_This]

Here's the story (I can't believe it's almost ten years old):

link