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PG&E Blames Squirrel For Large Marin County Power Outage

MARIN COUNTY (CBS SF) -- A large power outage that affected about 24,000 PG&E customers in Marin County Wednesday morning was caused by a squirrel, a utility spokesman said.

The outage was reported at 10:12 a.m. and primarily affected customers in the Tiburon, Mill Valley, Corte Madera and Muir Beach areas.

PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno said the outage appears to have been caused by a squirrel that came into contact with equipment at a Mill Valley substation and caused a flashover that damaged a breaker.

"Essentially, the squirrel acted as a conductor between isolated pieces of equipment," he said.

About half of those affected had power back around 11:15 a.m.

Power was restored to all remaining customers at 11:30 a.m., Moreno said.

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