TORRINGTON – A squirrel worked its way into an integral piece of electrical equipment, which is causing power outages throughout large areas of the city of Torrington and the surrounding areas.
According to Electric Superintendent Dana Youtz, the incident melted a jumper in the Curtis Substation and caused a brown-out, or a reduction of the availability of power in a certain area.
“We had a squirrel get up on a 35,000-volt line to Curtis substation,” Youtz said. “That caused a flash and melted a jumper, so we had to do the repair, which was basically brown-out conditions. We had to have Western Area Power drop the circuit completely so we could do the repair.”
Youtz said his team is working on repairing the issue and he hopes to have power restored within the hour.
“It’s a large window to get it fixed, but we’re hoping to have everything back up and normal within the hour,” he said.
Several traffic lights in town have been affected by the outage. In the event that a traffic light is malfunctioning, officials say to treat the situation as if it were a four-way stop.
