Squirrel causes outage effecting 3,900

A rodent is to blame for a Wednesday morning power outage in west Lawton that took out about 3,900 customers for a short time.

Tim Hushbeck, PSO external affairs manager, said the outage happened shortly before 11 a.m. at the westside power substation. He named the culprit this time but warned of another to come as temperatures rise.

“It was a squirrel, a squirrel,” he said. “Pretty soon it’ll be snakes, though.”

Three electric feeders were knocked out, Hushbeck said. Power was out in three sections, including near Cameron University along West Bore Boulevard, from 67th Street north past Quanah Parker Trailway down to West Gore, and from 67th and Gore northeast to Northwest 82nd south to Bishop Road.

Power began return to customers around 11:45 a.m.