Squirrel Briefly Knocks Out Power To 4,000 In Newport

NEWPORT, RI — Thousands of Newport residents woke up in the dark Wednesday morning. The short-lived outage was caused by a squirrel on a transmission line, according to National Grid.

The outage happened a little before 7:45 a.m. and was resolved by 8:15 a.m., affecting 4,000 National Grid customers in Newport. The squirrel made its way onto a transmission line, a spokesperson for the company said, and was electrocuted.

While it sounds unexpected that a small animal could cause so much damage, squirrel-related outages are not uncommon, the spokesperson said.