Jolted Squirrel Takes Down Chester Main Street Power Line

CHESTER, NJ — Residents and businesses in both Chester Borough and Township were in the dark for a couple of hours on Sunday morning, losing power because of an unlikely source.

After a squirrel touched a power line on Main Street/County Road 513 near Sentry Lane at about 9:15 a.m., the live electrical wire dropped to the ground.

Chester Police reported about the problem to their social media followers on Sunday morning, alerting them that JCP&L was expected to show up about an hour after the time of their post, to begin repairing the line.

Police Chief Thomas Williver told Patch the department didn’t have an exact number of JCP&L customers who were impacted by Sunday’s outage, but in an email said it “affected a large number of customers in Chester Township and Borough.”

Traffic, during the time the wire was down, was shifted away from it, Williver said.

Chester Police Department reported on their Facebook Page that power was restored close to 11:45 a.m., with the squirrel “removed by patrols.”

A few people commenting on the police department Facebook Post had some laughs over the squirrel situation.

“Is it detained and charged?” one person asked.
“I am pretty sure the squirrel got a charge out of the experience,” a man replied.
“The squirrel now holds all the power,” someone else chimed in.
“Only in Chester can a squirrel take down a whole town’s power,” was another comment. “This is NUTS!”
“I’m going to squirrel away some acorns to get even,” a woman answered.

Click here to read Chester Police Department’s original post and the follow up comments about the incident.

Questions or comments about this story? Have a local news tip? Contact me at: jennifer.miller@patch.com.