Jul. 26–ELYSBURG — It looks like Thursday night’s power outage was caused by either a furry woodland creature or some wicked summer weather.
“We had some thunderstorms roll through the area late in the afternoon,” Teri MacBride, regional community relations director, PPL Corp., said Friday afternoon.
However, the blackout that left Knoebels Amusement Resort in the dark around 9 p.m., momentarily stranding some visitors on the Skyway ride, could have been caused by, of all things, a squirrel.
“A squirrel got into an area that it shouldn’t have,” MacBride said, noting that workers discovered the carcass. She couldn’t say with any certainty on what, if anything, the squirrel had nibbled.
“We don’t really know,” what precisely caused the power failure, she continued, saying that she wasn’t sure, exactly, how far the outage stretched. Knoebels Campground, as well as J&D Campground, just north of Route 487, were affected.
It didn’t take long for PPL crews to respond, though, according to MacBride. There were trucks in the area working on aftereffects of the storms at the time of the blackout. She didn’t have an exact time, but MacBride said the teams responded minutes after getting the call.
“(Crews) switched some routings and were able to bypass the problem,” she said.
During the outage, Knoebels maintenance workers were able to set up spotlights with emergency generators and use gasoline engines to rescue the Skyway riders with no trouble at all, according to co-manager Buddy Knoebel.
Within a half-hour of the first call, area fire crews had responded, setting up lights in the parking lot to assist guests as they exited the amusement park.
Knoebels reopened for business Friday.
You must be logged in to post a comment.