See what happens when a snake causes a power outage

You've probably heard about critters causing power outages by crawling into transformers.  

An outage on Tuesday night in the Oakleaf and Argyle areas of Clay County was caused by a snake that crawled across a transformer tie-breaker in Clay Electric's Double Branch substation.  

It caused an outage that left just over 5,000 customers of the cooperative in the dark for nearly an hour around 10:30pm.  

Clay Electric officials say the snake caused an arc flash when it made contact with the energized equipment, taking two transformers in the substation out of service and causing outages on five feeder lines.

Personnel checked the substation Wednesday morning and found no repairs will be needed.  But some cosmetic work (painting) will be done to the area where the snake caused the equipment to arc, which caused some scorching.

"All the rain lately has got snakes moving around and looking for higher ground", said Orange Park District Line Supervisor Don Clark.

Clay Electric says it's not unusual for reptiles and small animals to occasionally come in contact with the cooperative’s distribution equipment and cause outages.