Squirrel Damage?

You may have seen the news last week about all the rain the Southeast was getting.  Here, in our neck of the woods we got nearly 10" in about 24 hours.  According to the news there was flooding but I never saw any.  The ground was so thirsty from what seems like months of no rain that it soaked up a whole lot of the water.

After all the rain, the wind began to blow and apparently it blew rather severely, because, just about midnight our power went out. The next morning we found out why.  This downed tree is a half a block from us.  I also lost one of my apple trees.  It was only 4 years old and still rather small so it didn't do any damage.

The power company arrived about 5:30 pm to clear this tree and restring the wires.  When they finished, after dark, they turned the power back on and Larry and I heard popping all over the house.  We found smoke coming out of our dishwasher and smelled fried electrical wires in the office.  I ran outside and stopped the work truck just as they were leaving and told him what happened.  He stayed and found the problem a few hundred feet from the tree on the same wire.  He told us it was squirrel damage!  Really?

When we accessed the damage we found that our dishwasher, oven and garage door opener were fried.  Several light bulbs were also fried.  Fortunately, our fridge and freeze were plugged into the generator at the time so they're okay.  Every surge protector in the house was fried but they did their job and protected the TV, computers, printer, etc.  The one in the office actually left black soot on the file cabinet where it was sitting.  Good thing it wasn't sitting on the carpet!