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Raccoon's electric exit sparks downtown outage
Raccoon's electrocution sparks downtown outage
Power company says varmint was after a bird nest
ROBERT CROWE, Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle | June 8, 2007
A nest full of bird eggs probably motivated a hungry raccoon to climb into a utility substation, where the critter triggered a downtown power outage Thursday as it was electrocuted.
"These varmints are trying to get into nests built by birds, and they're trying to get to bird eggs," said Leticia Lowe, CenterPoint spokeswoman.
About 1,500 customers were without power between 12:30 a.m. and 2:40 a.m Thursday. The outage was limited to near downtown's Gable Street substation, one of about 225 substations in Houston, Lowe said.
Though outages caused by animals can affect thousands of customers, they are typically limited to relatively small areas around substations or transformers.
"The systems are sectionalized, so these (substations) are basically coordinated," said Texas A&M University electrical engineering professor Chanan Singh. "If there's an outage in one (neighborhood) it's isolated by circuit breakers."
To cut back on animal electrocutions, CenterPoint has tried to stop birds from nesting in substations.
CenterPoint has installed high-frequency emitters near substations and some transformers to scare birds. They also have decoys of owls and snakes in place. Some high-voltage hardware is also insulated to keep animals from short-circuiting power.
All this has helped CenterPoint reduce by 75 percent outages caused by animal electrocutions in the past 12 years, Lowe said.
"We've seen positive results from the deterrents but, unfortunately, some animals still get in," Lowe said. "It's an industrywide problem across the country."
Animal-caused power outages are more often triggered by squirrels and other small mammals that touch two live wires on transformers and power lines, Singh said.
"When an animal just goes over lines and touches two terminals, that causes a power surge," he said.
Tree branches are more often to blame for neighborhood outages than animals, Singh said.