BEND, OR -- Pacific Power officials say a Friday morning power outage was caused by a squirrel. More than 4,700 customers were initially impacted by the outage, which began at about 7:45 a.m. Nearby residents reported hearing a loud blast just before losing power. 

By 8:30, Pacific Power crews had restored electricity to a little over 3,500 customers. It was fully restored by about 11:30 a.m.  The squirrel did not survive the confrontation. 

This is the third power outage blamed on an animal in Bend, in the last month. June 26, Pacific Power said 5,200 customers were impacted when a bird pecked through the housing surrounding a transformer. Then on July 14, nearly 10,000 Central Electric Cooperative customers were plunged into darkness after a bird flew into a major transmission line. In both cases, the birds were killed.