Critter leads to power outages in Spring Valley

You can blame a squirrel for a Monday morning power outage in Spring Valley.

A police officer told a dispatcher that a squirrel zapped a transformer around 8:30 this morning in an alley along Devlin Street. Ameren was immediately notified. Not longer after that, police were called about a school bus incident involving a downed power line. Nobody was hurt.

At the height of the problem, Ameren reported 60 outages in Spring Valley. All the power was back on by noon.