Thanksgiving day power outage thanks to a squirrel
On Thanksgiving day a temporary power outage occurred on the north side of Charlevoix that left many eating in the dark or scrambling for lost time in holiday meal preparation.
The culprit was a Sciuridae, more commonly known as a squirrel.
The approximately 2-hour outage started at 2 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 25, according to Charlevoix's Electric Department Director John Griffith.
The unlucky rodent blew out a fuse located near Mercer Road and U.S. 31, affecting the northeast section of the city.
Hundreds of homes were impacted, including the Weathervane Restaurant, which was booked with reservations as one of the only businesses serving a Thanksgiving meal.
City officials were unsure about the exact number of those left without electricity. Griffith wrote in an email to the Courier, "I don’t have an accurate count of affected customers but would estimate 200 households."
The bushy-tailed culprit is a frequent aggravation to electric infrastructure not just in Charlevoix but all over the United States, according to American Public Power Association, coming in second only to storms for reasons for power outages.
Squirrels damage electrical distribution facilities by tunneling, chewing through electrical insulation, or simultaneously coming into contact with two conductors at different electrical potentials.
Charlevoix's electric system serves about 4,500 customers in the city and surrounding townships, including parts of Charlevoix, Eveline, Hayes, and Marion townships. The system consists of two substations with roughly 2,000 power poles and well over 100 miles of electric wires, according to the city's website.
"Aside from the day being Thanksgiving, it was a pretty routine power outage," said city manager Mark Heydlauff.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Thanksgiving day power outage thanks to a squirrel
