Squirrel Caused 4,000 Households To Lose Power In Minnesota

Some people woke up with no power over the weekend in Minnesota, all thanks to a curious squirrel that couldn't help themselves.

The incident happened in Prior Lake, Minnesota according to the Minnesota Valley Electric Cooperative. The MVEC posted an update to their page about the outage. It happened around 7am, luckily it only took an hour to fix.

So what exactly happened to cause the outage? The MVEC stated "a squirrel was in contact with the substation equipment."

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So I'm not the most informed on electrical equipment, that's where my friend Google comes in. The website Study Electrical stated that substation is an installation that interconnects elements of an electric utility's system. It can also interrupt or establish electrical circuit, change the voltage, frequency or other characteristics of electrical energy flowing in the circuit.

It doesn't say what exactly the squirrel was doing to the equipment other than being in contact with the equipment. It also doesn't say what happened to the squirrel after the power went out. Hopefully the little animal is still out there.

My wonderful morning show partner Jeanne told me a story of the time a squirrel chewed through her cable wires in Duluth. She had no idea what was going on until she called her provider who showed up to investigate. The provider informed Jeanne of the chewed wires and stated it happens more than you think it would.

Speaking of wild animals, check out this wild home in Wisconsin: