Squirrel Causes Massive Greenwich Power Outage

Update 9:50 a.m.

The massive power outage in Greenwich Thursday morning was caused by a squirrel who at 8 a.m. walked across a circuit at a Cos Cob substation, Connecticut Light & Power officials told Patch.

According to CL&P spokesman Mitch Gross, the squirrel “walked where it shouldn’t have and triggered the problem.” Gross added, "It shut down the equipment as it is designed to do. But when the equipment shut down it caused damage to some other equipment."

Asked whether the squirrel was the only injury involved, Gross said, “Injury? I think the squirrel is a fatality.”

According to Gross, "It's going to be later this morning, at least a few more hours before everyone is back on line." As of 9:50 a.m., about 7,200 customers were without power, down from 15,000 when the outage occurred, Gross said.

Gross said that there’s equipment designed to prevent animals from traversing circuits.

“Sometimes they , still, and that’s exactly what happened,” he said.

Original Story

More than half of Greenwich—some 14,000 Connecticut Light & Power customers—are without power as of 9:15 a.m. Thursday morning, according to the utility's website.

CL&P and town officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

The widespread outages—unique to Greenwich among CL&P's customer base, according to the utility's website—come on the heels of and following outages in June as to cope with high heat and humidity.

Local editor Barbara Heins contributed to this report.