Squirrel causes Wichita power outage
Nearly 10,000 customers were affected by small rodent
6/24/2013WICHITA, Kan. — One small rodent is getting the blame today for a massive power outage in southern and eastern sections of Wichita.
KAKE-TV reports nearly 10,000 customers of Westar Energy were affected by the outage during the afternoon.
Authorities say a squirrel crawled into equipment at a substation, causing a transformer to blow out. A fire then broke out at the substation. Firefighters were quickly able to bring it under control.
Power was restored to the Westar customers in about one hour.