Squirrel Power!

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/opinion/sunday/squirrel-power.html

By JON MOOALLEM
The New York Times
August 31, 2013

SOME say the world will end in fire. Some say ice. Some say coordinated 
kamikaze attacks on the power grid by squirrels.

At least, some have been saying that to me, when they find out I’ve spent 
the summer keeping track of power outages caused by squirrels.

Power outages caused by squirrels are a new hobby of mine, a persnickety 
and constantly updating data set that hums along behind the rest of my 
life the way baseball statistics or celebrity-birthing news might for 
other people. It started in April, after I read about a squirrel that 
electrocuted itself on a power line in Tampa, Fla., cutting electricity to 
700 customers and delaying statewide achievement tests at three nearby 
schools. I was curious, just enough to set up a Google news alert: 
squirrel power. But as the summer progressed, and the local news reports 
of power outages caused by squirrels piled up in my in-box, my interest in 
power outages caused by squirrels became more obsessive and profound.

I know: it’s hard to accept that a single squirrel can disrupt and 
frustrate thousands of people at a time, switching off our electrified 
lives for hours. But since Memorial Day, I’ve cataloged reports of 50 
power outages caused by squirrels in 24 states. (And these, of course, are 
only those power outages severe enough to make the news.) Fifteen hundred 
customers lost power in Mason City, Iowa; 1,500 customers in Roanoke, Va.; 
5,000 customers in Clackamas County, Ore.; and 10,000 customers in 
Wichita, Kan. — and that was just during two particularly busy days in 
June. A month later, there were two separate P.O.C.B.S., as I’ve come to 
call power outages caused by squirrels, around the small town of 
Evergreen, Mont., on a single day.

Squirrels cut power to a regional airport in Virginia, a Veterans Affairs 
medical center in Tennessee, a university in Montana and a Trader Joe’s in 
South Carolina. Five days after the Trader Joe’s went down, another 
squirrel cut power to 7,200 customers in Rock Hill, S.C., on the opposite 
end of the state. Rock Hill city officials assured the public that power 
outages caused by squirrels were “very rare” and that the grid was “still 
a reliable system.” Nine days later, 3,800 more South Carolinians lost 
power after a squirrel blew up a circuit breaker in the town of 
Summerville.

[...]

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