ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - West Alton and Wood River, Illinois residents might have noticed they didn't have power Monday morning.
Normally, blame would be towards something like weather for an outage but West Alton and Woodriver residents can point their fingers at another suspect: squirrels.
A squirrel chewed through wires at a Ameren substation in Illinois Monday, causing 2,800 Ameren customers in Woodriver and East Alton to be without power, Ameren spokesperson Brian Bretsch told KMOX.
"The outage is related to a squirrel who chewed through some of our equipment and chewed on it and caused the outage," said Bretsch.
Ameren crews were sent to different substations, where they discovered the damage the squirrel had caused.
The power outage for West Alton and Woodriver residents lasted for three hours, but it was successfully restored by 11 a.m.
Bretsch says animals like squirrels chewing through wires isn't a new way for the power to go out.
"Animals do cause power outages at times," said Bretsch.
Bretsch said that Ameren has invested heavily on both the Missouri and Illinois side over the last 10-12 years to improve the infrastructure and make sure outages caused by animals rarely happen.