Mother Nature can cause her share of power outages. The second leading cause of power disruptions, however, is due to animal interference.
When snakes slither into substations or squirrels gnaw on equipment or wires, they can cause widespread outages. In fact, animal-caused outages can cost utility companies between $15 million and $18 million per year, according Critter Guard's statistics page.
The company, which produces devices to minimize animal-caused outages and protect wildlife, tracked outage statistics and created this infographic below. For more information, check out our photo gallery of some of the most popular critters behind the animal-caused outages.
Infographic by Critter Guard