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A venturesome squirrel was the culprit in a power outage that darkened Sisters
businesses and homes for nearly two hours Sunday, August 18.
According to Central Electric Cooperative Member Services Director Jim
Crowell, the squirrel climbed out onto one of the three power lines running
along Ash Street south of The Gallery Restaurant at about 11 a.m. The
squirrel's contact with the line caused an electrical short.
"The squirrel fried," Crowell said, "which burned up one of the lines and it
came down on the other two."
One line fell and draped over the roof of Country Collections on the corner
of Hood and Ash streets. Larry Meek, co-proprietor of the antique store was
there when the line came down.
"At first it sounded like a jet engine taking off and then there was a big
boom," Meek said. "A few seconds later there was another boom and then this
power line just melted."
The line lay coiled on the sidewalk in front of the store. Meek and Tom
Vildibill, a vacationer from California, restrained a couple of pedestrians
from walking where the line lay and then taped off the area and awaited police
and electrical crews.
"They did exactly what they should have done," Crowell said. He said that while
the outage opened a fuse and cut power to the line, "you've got to assume
always that when a line is down it's hot."
CEC crews restored power at about 12:40 p.m.
According to Crowell squirrels are a constant problem for the electric company,
climbing on wires, into substations and getting into underground facilities.
"There's not much you can do because the little buggers can go lots of places,"
Crowell said.
