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A squirrel tripped a transformer and left about 2,000 customers without power between Murphy north to the Tennessee state line Friday on Dec. 1.
The incident affected Blue Ridge Mountain EMC’s feed from the Tennessee Valley Authority. Power was out for about 45 minutes, TVA spokesman Scott Fiedler said.
Cherokee County emergency services sent out a reminder via social media letting people know that intersections controlled by traffic lights should be treated as if there was a four-way stop sign when the power is out.
Fiedler said a TVA project to extend and expand power lines in the west end of Cherokee County will provide more resilience and redundancy and help avoid “planned and unplanned outages such as the squirrel.”