Varmint causes large power outage

Last week, the power in Caribou County experienced another outage.  The most frequent cause of power outages in the area is weather, such as the one caused a couple weeks ago by high winds and resultant downed tree limbs.  Weather may well have led to this event as well, as it was preliminarily determined to have been caused by a rock chuck, who had had perhaps been suffering from spring fever, or was just excited to stretch his legs after a long winter and took a trip to the top of one of the city’s transformers.

That a rock chuck (or marmot, or golden marmoset, or ground hog, or whatever term you use for the creature) was involved is beyond dispute.  The mortal remains of the mammal lay smoking at the bottom of the west most transformer at the facility next to Thirkill elementary.  The exact nature of the incident was, however, only in its preliminary stage of evaluation at the end of last week.  

Power was reported to be out across Soda Springs, Bancroft, and Grace in spots throughout the morning on Friday.  Those places with generators like Caribou Medical Center, for instance, had them kick on.  Most locations around town operated in the dark, or took an early lunch and headed outside to enjoy the weather.

CMC has multiple backup generators, and according to Dillon Liechty, there is no appreciable discontinuity in power before they kick on, which is essential for many of the life saving and sustaining machines in operation. There is a 13 day supply of power through the backups in the event of a sustained power emergency. 

The Senior Center in Soda Springs was seating for lunch at the time, and set the tables with candles so that they could continue uninterrupted.  The food had been prepared by that point, and the appliances themselves are primarily gas-operated.  

Within minutes of the outage, members of the city crew were on site investigating, including City Service Director Justin Hansen and Fire Chief Dan Squires.  In the course of their examination of the grounds, Hansen discovered the deceased rodent, which had most likely been responsible for the popping sound reported to have been heard.  

“He’s having a bad day,” Hansen noted.

City Councilmember Paul Gritton arrived on scene fairly soon after to see what was going on, and the power company was alerted to the situation, which was ultimately resolved.  Whether anything can be done to keep rodents from interfering with the power supply is unclear.  There is relatively little that can be done to prevent them from entering the power station location, as it is open air and marmots don’t have strong preservation instincts, it would seem.