Snake blamed for Virginia power outage, affecting 11700 customers

Utility company officials said a power outage affecting about 11,700 customers in Virginia was caused by a snake.

Dominion Energy confirmed about 11,700 customers in Newport News, including Christopher Newport University, lost power Saturday night.

Crews discovered the cause of the outage was a snake that slithered into a high voltage area and came into contact with a transformer.

Electricity was restored to all customers after about an hour and a half.

The type of snake responsible for the outage was not identified.