Squirrel cuts off power to part of Silicon Valley

A power outage that left part of Silicon Valley in the dark early Saturday was caused by a squirrel, an electric company spokesperson told The San Francisco Chronicle.

Nearly 2,000 customers in Cupertino were without power for about two hours. Power was restored around 8:30 a.m., said the paper on its website. The squirrel was electrocuted after it touched the PG&E electrical equipment.

A spokesperson for the electric utility didn't respond immediately to a request for comment.

Cupertino is probably best known as the headquarters city of Apple. Hard-drive maker Seagate Technology is also based there.

Tiny squirrels causing big havoc for cities and businesses is more common than you'd think.

Columnist Jon Mooallem, in a piece for the New York Times last year, described how he set up an informal survey of squirrel-triggered power outages last year by using Google News alerts. The result: Between Memorial Day and late August, he got alerts on about 50 squirrel-caused power outages in 24 states, one cutting off juice to 10,000 customers.

Squirrels tripping up electricity wires also get the blame for yanking the power to stock exchanges. A squirrel-caused power outage shut down the Nasdaq Stock Market in 1987 and 1994.

MORE FROM USA TODAY