http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/opinion/sunday/squirrel-power.html
By JON MOOALLEM
The New York Times
August 31, 2013
SOME say the world will end in fire. Some say ice. Some say coordinated
kamikaze attacks on the power grid by squirrels.
At least, some have been saying that to me, when they find out I’ve spent
the summer keeping track of power outages caused by squirrels.
Power outages caused by squirrels are a new hobby of mine, a persnickety
and constantly updating data set that hums along behind the rest of my
life the way baseball statistics or celebrity-birthing news might for
other people. It started in April, after I read about a squirrel that
electrocuted itself on a power line in Tampa, Fla., cutting electricity to
700 customers and delaying statewide achievement tests at three nearby
schools. I was curious, just enough to set up a Google news alert:
squirrel power. But as the summer progressed, and the local news reports
of power outages caused by squirrels piled up in my in-box, my interest in
power outages caused by squirrels became more obsessive and profound.
I know: it’s hard to accept that a single squirrel can disrupt and
frustrate thousands of people at a time, switching off our electrified
lives for hours. But since Memorial Day, I’ve cataloged reports of 50
power outages caused by squirrels in 24 states. (And these, of course, are
only those power outages severe enough to make the news.) Fifteen hundred
customers lost power in Mason City, Iowa; 1,500 customers in Roanoke, Va.;
5,000 customers in Clackamas County, Ore.; and 10,000 customers in
Wichita, Kan. — and that was just during two particularly busy days in
June. A month later, there were two separate P.O.C.B.S., as I’ve come to
call power outages caused by squirrels, around the small town of
Evergreen, Mont., on a single day.
Squirrels cut power to a regional airport in Virginia, a Veterans Affairs
medical center in Tennessee, a university in Montana and a Trader Joe’s in
South Carolina. Five days after the Trader Joe’s went down, another
squirrel cut power to 7,200 customers in Rock Hill, S.C., on the opposite
end of the state. Rock Hill city officials assured the public that power
outages caused by squirrels were “very rare” and that the grid was “still
a reliable system.” Nine days later, 3,800 more South Carolinians lost
power after a squirrel blew up a circuit breaker in the town of
Summerville.
[...]
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