Electric service in downtown Fulton was a bit squirrelly Thursday morning. And for nearly an hour, some commuters were met with blank traffic signals and dark offices.
Fulton Electrical Supervisor Chris Dreste said the short outage left 250 downtown customers without power from 8:23-9:15 a.m. Among those affected by the outage were Fulton City Hall, banks and most shops in the Brick District.
Callaway County Presiding Commissioner Gary Jungermann said the culprit was the bushy-tailed variety.
"It was a squirrel," he said.
The squirrel caused a transformer to catch fire near the intersection of Wood Street and Route O. The rodent didn't survive the incident.
Randall Kleindienst, the eastern district commissioner, said this is not an unusual occurrence.
"This happens once or twice a year," he said.