ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — The lights are back on for nearly 3,300 Appalachian Power customers in Roanoke Valley after a squirrel made a one-way trip into an electrical substation.
The electric utility said customers in Roanoke and Botetourt counties were without power for about an hour and 15 minutes on Monday.
Measures are in place to keep rodents from gaining access to the inside of the substation, but an outage by squirrel is not uncommon.
The Roanoke Times reports that it's the third such outage in the region in recent months.
In June, parts of north Roanoke lost electricity after a squirrel found its way into some electrical equipment. And in early October, nearly 2,200 Appalachian Power customers in the Christiansburg area lost power for about two hours, caused again by a squirrel.
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Information from: The Roanoke Times, http://www.roanoke.com
