Dominion Energy crews responded quickly and power was restored to all affected customers within an hour and a half of the outage being reported. The outage began around 9:15 p.m., affected more than 6,000 customers, and was completely cleared by 10:30 p.m.
Unidentified snake species
The species of snake that caused the outage has not been identified; however, both eastern garter snakes and eastern rat snakes are native to Virginia. Snake-related outages have occurred in other areas as well. For example, four snake-related outages were reported near Nashville, Tennessee, in May. In those cases, gray rat snakes were found in electrical substations and shorted out equipment.
Related cases in the United States
“This incident highlights the ongoing problem of snakes entering substations and causing disruption. Dominion Energy’s rapid response minimised the impact of the outage and ensured service was restored quickly.”
