A squirrel breaks off a piece of a stick at Fort Borst Park in Centralia last May. This is likely not the same squirrel that caused a power outage Monday.
An unlucky squirrel was the cause of a power outage that coincidentally hit Centralia at the same time as a near-total eclipse Monday.
According to the Centralia Police Department, the squirrel blew a transformer in the area of First Street, which caused a fire.
The outage caused the crossing arms at the First Street railroad crossing to go down for about 20 minutes.
Traffic was detoured until fire crews and Centralia City Light could put out the fire and restore power.
Several buildings on Centralia College’s campus also lost power.
“Can we blame it on the eclipse?” a post on Facebook from the police department asked in jest.
