EMERALD ISLE, N.C. (WITN) - A squirrel is being named as the culprit of a power outage in Emerald Isle, affecting around 5,000 members.

Saturday, just after 7:45 a.m., Carteret-Craven Electric Co-op (CCEC) crews went to an outage in Emerald Isle that left thousands in the dark.

CCEC says that despite having squirrel guards on their substation equipment, one sneaky squirrel found a way to cut off half the town’s power.

According to the Facebook post , by 9 a.m., power was restored.

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