Technician Online

January 9th, 2008

How do you like your squirrel? — Well done.

By Dreier on January 9th, 2008

As most of you now know, yesterday our campus was attacked by a vicious unforgiving enemy — a squirrel.
This little guy took out all of NC State’s main campus by himself. As I was the photographer on the scene, I thought it might be nice to see how the night went from my view, and how I ended up face to face with the squirrel himself.

The power went off to the Technician Office just like the rest of campus, around 5:30, and I went out to the dorms with a writer and the night’s photo editor to find out what happened and how students were reacting. After interviewing students, RAs, and campus police around Wolf Village and Tucker Beach, we still thought that a transformer had randomly exploded, leaving the campus without power.

We regrouped in the Technician office on the third floor of Witherspoon, and I was sent to the Sullivan Shop where the power substation is located. I got to the substation soon after power had been restored and a team of both University Facilities staff and Progress Energy officials were on the scene.

Officials from Progress Energy explained the situation: the substation had been short circuited and the breakers had flipped as a safety precaution and NC State Facilities staff had to close the breakers to restore power to campus. The cause of the short circuit was determined to be a squirrel, which was found dead beneath the equipment at the substation. We did get pictures of the squirrel (extra toasted), but we decided not to publish them in the paper.

The officials at the substation were very helpful and informative, especially the officials from Progress Energy. The situation seemed to be dealt with efficiently and effectively by all members involved — Facilities Officials, Progress Energy, RAs, Campus Police, and students. Thanks to everyone for smoothing out what could have been a big bump on move in day.

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