For more than 4,200 county and city residents, and one small mysterious animal of some kind, it was lights out at 10:42 p.m. Friday.
La Plata Electric Association spokeswoman Indiana Reed said they weren’t sure what kind of animal it was – the kind that crawl and climb around and get into things – but something interfered with electrical equipment Friday night in Durango and caused a power outage.
“It was probably a squirrel or a raccoon, as opposed to a deer or something like that,” she said. “They don’t typically get into the system.”
Whatever was found in a westside substation, to put it mildly, it was the last hurrah for the critter.
“It interfered with a hot wire, so when that happens, the circuits all just open up, just in case, so it took us some time to find out exactly where it was,” Reed said.
She said two substations were affected: the Westside substation near Greenmount Cemetery, which provides power along U.S. Highway 160 west, the Tech Center, the Crestview neighborhood and the northwest part of Main Avenue downtown; and the Trimble-area substation, which provides power for the southern Animas Valley.
Crews restored power to the 2,357 customers in the Trimble area just before midnight. Then they focused on removing the animal from the lines of the Westside substation and began testing and repairs, finally resupplying power to the remaining 1,891 customers in Durango around 1:30 a.m.
bmathis@durangoherald.com
