Hundreds of East Dubuque families can blame a squirrel for the power outage that kept them in the dark for around an hour on Thanksgiving. Officials with the East Dubuque fire department reported a transformer fire about 10:45 Thursday morning. The blaze near Scenic Heights and Hiawatha Drive caused power outages to more than 800 customers of Jo-Carroll Energy. Crews said they were able to get power restored to all customers by about noon. The energy utility says a squirrel got into the substation and created a short that would cause the power outage.
