News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
According to Central Electric Cooperative Member Services Director Jim Crowell, the squirrel climbed out onto one of the three power lines running along Ash Street south of The Gallery Restaurant at about 11 a.m. The squirrel's contact with the line caused an electrical short.
"The squirrel fried," Crowell said, "which burned up one of the lines and it came down on the other two."
One line fell and draped over the roof of Country Collections on the corner of Hood and Ash streets. Larry Meek, co-proprietor of the antique store was there when the line came down.
"At first it sounded like a jet engine taking off and then there was a big boom," Meek said. "A few seconds later there was another boom and then this power line just melted."
The line lay coiled on the sidewalk in front of the store. Meek and Tom Vildibill, a vacationer from California, restrained a couple of pedestrians from walking where the line lay and then taped off the area and awaited police and electrical crews.
"They did exactly what they should have done," Crowell said. He said that while the outage opened a fuse and cut power to the line, "you've got to assume always that when a line is down it's hot."
CEC crews restored power at about 12:40 p.m.
According to Crowell squirrels are a constant problem for the electric company, climbing on wires, into substations and getting into underground facilities.
"There's not much you can do because the little buggers can go lots of places," Crowell said.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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