Mount Vernon Optic-Herald

A squirrel was blamed for a three hour power outage that left 90 percent of the City of Mount Vernon without electrical power Thursday morning, Dec. 15. Local Justice of the Peace Jim Alford described the event as causing a “fireball the size of my truck.” Judge Alford was doing his morning errands and passed the pole on Rutherford St., where the mishap occurred. For more details from the outage, see the December 22 edition of the Mount Vernon Optic-Herald.