CLINTON TOWNSHIP (WWJ) - Was it a bird? A racoon? Or something else? Whatever it was, a curious critter did a number on DTE equipment out in Macomb County on Saturday afternoon, cutting power to thousands.
According to DTE's Outage Map, roughly 6,000 customers are in the dark after an unknown animal, possibly a bird, damaged company equipment.
The large swath of outages occurred around noon and originally affected about 10,000 people in an area north of 16 Mile Road and south of Hall Road.
The company said restoration efforts are underway and expect power to be up and running for affected Macomb County residents by 4 p.m.
Critter-causing power outages are not an uncommon occurrence, energy officials say. While wildlife seeming go about their day causing little interference, a wide range of unusual suspects have cut power to thousands of people in communities worldwide.
As reported by Entergy, here are the more "wild" cases:
• In June 2021, two bears—on two separate occasions—climbed up a pole and became stuck in the powerlines causing a brief power outage to Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative customers in Arizona.
• In Kenya, Africa, a small monkey caused a nation-wide outage when it made contact with a transformer at the Gitaru Power Station.
• In North Carolina, a cow used a guy wire to rub it’s back, in turn breaking the powerline and cutting power to Duke Energy customers.
• A bobcat in Florida caused an outage to 625 Gulf Power customers. It is unknown how the bobcat got on the power pole.
For details and updates on the latest outages, visit DTE Energy here.