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# Rats! Rodent at source of outage
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/rats-rodent-at-source-of-outage/
- Published: 2006-11-01T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T21:57:59.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: local, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By JESSICA ROBERTS Special to the Daily Press*

CITYWIDE — A rodent found its way into a high-voltage electrical box early Tuesday morning, leaving hundreds of residents without power and cable for up to eight hours.

Time Warner reported that cable and Internet services were lost around 7:30 a.m., about four hours after the animal run-in at the intersection of 26th Street and Colorado Avenue.

“The problem was that a rodent got into an underground electric padmounted switchbox and came in contact with high voltage,” Edison spokesman Mark Olson said.

Edison reported that 2,419 customers lost power for only 30 seconds, while 250 more were without power until the afternoon, including cable provider Time Warner. Patty Rockenwagner, a Time Warner spokeswoman, said that about 7,000 cable customers and 5,000 high-speed Internet customers were affected, although some of those affected customers overlap.

Time Warner serves about 27,000 homes in Santa Monica.

“Some people have no power and no cable,” Rockenwagner said yesterday afternoon.“Some have power, but no cable. Some were not affected at all.”

The initial, brief power failure extended north of Pico Boulevard to Arizona Avenue, and west from Centinela Avenue to 22nd Street. Most immediately regained power, as automatic safety systems were activated, but a smaller area of customers — from Colorado Avenue east to Nebraska Avenue, between Franklin and Stewart streets — did not have power until the afternoon.

Businesses in the area include Yahoo! Music and MTV Networks, as well as The Water Garden and Colorado Center business parks.

Cable and Internet services were lost from Santa Monica Boulevard to Marine Avenue, west of 26th Street and east of Ocean Avenue.

Both power and cable services were completely restored by 1 p.m. to all but one customer — a large building located very close to the damaged equipment. Power was expected to be on for that building by 5 p.m., when the switchbox was to be repaired.

The intrusive rodent was not identified. “These boxes are sealed so nobody can get in, but sometimes rodents get inside,” Olson said. “It’s pretty rare, but it does happen occasionally.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 1, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/110106.pdf?ref=smdp.com)