Raccoon damages substation, causes outage to 42,000

KENT FAULK
News staff writer

HUNTSVILLE - A raccoon got into a Huntsville electrical substation Monday afternoon, shutting down power to 44,000 homes and businesses for nearly two hours, according to a utility spokesman. [...]

He must have used his nimble fingers and inate cleverness. Sneaky little demons. You'd never hear of a possum doing all that. Laziness does have its advantages, you know.

One of the biggest problems was when residents tied up emergency phone lines to ask when their power would return, [spokesman for the Huntsville Police Department Wendell] Johnson said.

Of course, if your phone doesn't work, what do you have to do? Lean out the window and...

Bill Yell, a spokesman for Huntsville Utilities, said the power went out at 2:43 p.m. after a raccoon got into equipment at one of the utility's large electrical substations in the downtown Huntsville region. "It took a pretty good jolt," he said.

Workers found the dead raccoon, Yell said.

I wonder if anyone ever told him not to yell indoors? Nah, probably never hears anything like that. Then again, it could be all that yelling.

ANYway, raccoons are evil and will sneak in your house and erase your hard drives and eat all the Brazil nuts out of the can and scoop the big vein of fudge out of the fudge royale ice cream before anyone gets a chance to eat any of it.

And you thought monkeys were bad.
posted by Terry at 10:12:00 AM