Power outage hits downtown Bend for over an hour, with a familiar cause: a wayward squirrel’s substation intrusion

(Update: Adding video, comments from barber, wine shop)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – Power went out across downtown Bend during Friday’s lunch hour and into the early afternoon, affecting more than 5,500 Pacific Power customers, an outage caused by a familiar culprit: a wayward squirrel at the utility’s riverfront substation.

The outage also knocked out traffic signals in the area and forced closure of the Deschutes County Courthouse, while affecting nearby county offices. The power went out for 5,576 customers around 12:37 p.m., according to Pacific Power’s outage map.

Though it listed an initial restoration estimate of “before 4 p.m.,” the power was restored shortly after 2 p.m., according to a company spokesman.

One downtown barber kept on working, bringing his chair outside and using battery-operated clippers.

"I'm making down with what I have … as long as the batteries last," he said.

For others, like Good Drop Wine Shop proprietor Sara Grover Worley, it wasn't that easy.

"Our POS (point of sales) systems aren't working," she said. "We aren't able to bring people through, even if they did want to buy something and we had the doors open.

"We have our refrigeration systems. We have to worry about those," she added. "And then you find out that it's a squirrel again, and you think, really? What can we do better? Or is there some way that we can manage our power substations better?"

Utility crews went to the downtown substation and “found a squirrel” had caused the outage, Pacific Power Senior Communications Specialist Simon Gutierrez said.

It’s not the first time, as many know, as squirrels have caused outages downtown and in other locations before, including one a year ago that cut power to more than 18,000 Bend customers.

“It’s a pretty common source of an outage,” Gutierrez said. “Squirrels and birds are two of our least welcome critters.”

Asked if anything can be done to prevent or reduce the threat of such animal-caused outages, Gutierrez said, “We do have some caging and netting-type material,” and “we’ll certainly look at” whether the downtown Bend situation warrants such additions.