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A Rat Causes Widespread Power Outage at Arizona State U.

April 11, 2011, 9:28 pm

By Scott Carlson

Buildings at Arizona State University’s Tempe campus lost power today, with some students stuck in elevators, according to local reports. The culprit: a large rodent, identified as a rat in some reports, burned out switches in a campus substation.

The power went out close to noon (reports differed on the precise time), and officials expected to have the power back on late in the day. Firemen had to carry a graduate student and his 350-pound wheelchair up a flight of stairs after the student waited three and a half hours for an elevator to work. “Very powerful rat it was,” the student said jokingly to a local news station.

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  • bizdean

    My office phone rang. “The car won’t start,” my wife complained. Turns out a rat had spent the night huddled against the warm engine, munching on the serpentine belt. When my darling spouse turned the ignition key, the belt bisected the rat and then snapped in two itself. The mechanic refused to touch anything under the hood until we had steam-cleaned the rat bits out of there. “Why did you send two towing bills on the same day?” asked my insurance agent. “One to the car wash, and one to the mechanic,” I replied. “You towed your car to a car wash? Why?!“ You can imagine where the conversation went from there.

  • iris411

    I’m sorry to hear that.

  • iris411

    Things like this remind us that we still need to find a way to co-exist with all creatures dwelling on the earth.

  • facdevniu

    So, what happend to the rat?

  • kajohnson

    was it from Mexico or the US?

  • sinaoni

    Great article. I will also contend that, the lower grades posted by students admitted by the affirmative action programs, were the results of impoverished environment rather than poor intelect. Given the same opportunity they might have performed equally well if not better. Trump, where is your college transcript?

  • mdanieltex

    It could be argued that it illustrates the success of affirmative action; or, affirmative action might have knocked out an even more successful individual.

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