Black snake may be to blame for power outage to over 10K customers in Durham, Duke Energy says

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- Power has been restored for over 10,000 people in Durham Tuesday morning.

The outage occurred Monday around 11 p.m. at a substation serving east Durham near Ashe Street, with most of the impact affecting the Hidden Hollow neighborhood.

A spokesperson with Duke Energy said it may have been caused by a snake.

"Crews found a black snake had come into contact with power lines in the substation, which is believed to have been the cause of the outage," the statement said.

Power was restored around 1:30 a.m.

The outage comes just days after thousands were without power Friday afternoon after a driver hit a utility pole downtown.

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