A raccoon single-handedly knocked out power in Seattle this morning

A raccoon paralyzes a city.
(Image credit: Screenshot/King5)

They don't call it the wild west for nothing, folks. Thousands of people in Seattle were without power Wednesday morning after a raccoon snuck into a substation and "somehow de-energized the system," KING 5 reports.

"I heard a loud explosion and just came here to see what happened. You wouldn't think such a small raccoon could cause so much trouble," one witness said. It took the city two hours of furiously working in the dark to restore electricity to the nearly 39,000 customers without power.

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.