Squirrels break into Colorado power substation, cause outages 2 days in a row, tell me about this news in (https://www.denverpost.com/2026/09/16/squirrel-power-substation-castle-rock-outage/)
17-09-2026
In Castle Rock, Colorado, a pair of squirrels caused back-to-back power outages on consecutive days at the exact same electrical substation.
The Incidents
Tuesday (First Outage): A squirrel entered a CORE Electric Cooperative substation located off Ridge Road. The animal made contact with high-voltage equipment, triggering an explosion that knocked out electricity to roughly 4,400 customers across the Douglas County suburb. Crews responded and were able to reroute power and complete repairs, restoring service in about two hours and ten minutes.
Wednesday (Second Outage): The following afternoon, a second squirrel infiltrated the same substation, damaging distribution equipment and knocking out power to approximately 1,300 customers. Technicians isolated the problem and restored electricity in about 40 minutes.
Why This Happens CORE Electric Cooperative noted that wildlife encountersprimarily involving birds and rodentsaccount for roughly 5% to 10% of their system outages each year, with squirrel incidents often spiking toward late summer and autumn as the animals become more active and tree growth brings them closer to power lines.
The cooperative explained that while they take significant measures to protect equipment and wildlifesuch as installing barriers, animal guards, and following avian protection protocolsit is physically impossible to enclose every piece of energized hardware inside a high-voltage substation. However, automated load-switching systems in the grid allow operators to reroute power around damaged sections, helping minimize downtime when animals breach defenses.