AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin Energy said a snake “made contact with an electrified circuit,” causing thousands to be without power Tuesday afternoon.
Austin Energy said a chicken snake crawled into one of the substations.
Roughly 16,000 people in east and southeast Austin lost power between 12:20 p.m. and 1:10 p.m. Tuesday. That number was at roughly 12,000 by 1:25 p.m.
Two major clusters of outages shown on the Austin Energy outage map affected the Riverside/Oltorf area and Govalle/East Cesar Chavez area in the timeframe of 12:20 p.m. – 1:10 p.m.
At 5:30 p.m., the outages had dwindled to 142 total customers. Almost all of those outages were concentrated in east Austin near East Cesar Chavez Street and Pleasant Valley Road.
By 7 p.m. Tuesday, most of the outages were resolved, with five active outages affecting six customers.
Screenshot of Austin Energy power outage map near the Govalle/East Cesar Chavez area taken around 1 p.m. Tuesday, May 16. (Courtesy: Austin Energy) 
Screenshot of Austin Energy power outage map near the Riverside/Oltorf area taken around 1 p.m. Tuesday, May 16. (Courtesy: Austin Energy) 
Screenshot of Austin Energy power outage map taken around 1 p.m. Tuesday, May 16. (Courtesy: Austin Energy)
By 1:15 p.m., there were 6,645 customers without power across Austin. Then at 1:30 p.m., the outages went up to 12,367. The majority of those outages were near the Govalle neighborhood.
