Keeping the lights on often requires keeping critters out. That’s because animals are behind thousands of outages every year.
Most of the time these accidents are easily corrected by utility crews and electricians, but the sheer volume of animal incursions as well as the variety of ways they can cause blackouts sometimes leaves even seasoned professionals scratching their heads.
Animals that regularly cause trouble include raccoons, snakes, rats, squirrels and birds of all kinds. But there are weirder, rarer examples of animal-triggered outages too. Let’s take a look at some of the ways animals get themselves — and us — into trouble when they mess with the power grid.
Jeff Postelwait is a writer and editor with a background in newspapers and online editing who has been writing about the electric utility industry since 2008. Jeff is senior editor for T&D World magazine and sits on the advisory board of the T&D World Conference and Exhibition. Utility Products, Power Engineering, Powergrid International and Electric Light & Power are some of the other publications in which Jeff's work has been featured. Jeff received his degree in journalism news editing from Oklahoma State University and currently operates out of Oregon.