SAN FRANCISCO—On Monday, June 8, a squirrel came into contact with Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) electrical equipment and caused widespread power outages in cities east of San Francisco, including Berkeley and Oakland. Other cities affected included San Pablo, Richmond, Kensington, El Cerrito, and Albany.

The power outage affected not only 45,000 homes and businesses, but it also closed down the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system’s downtown Berkeley station for about two hours. According to Berkeley police, three consecutive emergency calls were placed from people stuck in elevators, but all were brought to safety.

After confirming the outage, PG&E took to Twitter to report that virtually all homes had their power restored by 10:15 p.m. P.D.T.

The Twitter account didn’t report the cause of the accident, but PG&E spokesman JD Guidi stated that a squirrel “impacted equipment” at a substation in El Cerrito.

Other cities to the south also suffered power loss Monday night. San Jose lost power to 4,100 residents, and 1,700 of Gilroy’s residents experienced blackouts as well. Guidi attributed this to equipment temperatures caused by triple-digit-temperatures. Monday’s weather forecast included low temperatures in the 90s, with high temps in the 100s. At 5:30 p.m., about 250 people in Antioch lost their power, and power wasn’t restored until 8:00 p.m.