10 Greatest Squirrel Attacks of All Time

In the wake of the ‘Squirrel Power‘ article by Jon Mooallem who boldly proclaimed “OH MY GOD, LOOK, I WROTE ABOUT POWER OUTAGES CAUSED BY SQUIRRELS IN THE NEW YORK TIMES“. I had to remind him that while awesome, he is not the first to warn people of this dastardly threat. In a presentation titled “Cyberwar: Not what we were expecting”, I outlined just how prevalent squirrel-based power outages are. I put forth the theory that squirrels are more of a threat than “cyberwar”.

In addition to routine power outages, squirrels are responsible for a variety of other mayhem. Here are the top 10 attacks of all time, which means the best I can find from ten minutes of Googling. Know of a good squirrel attack story? Post a comment with a link!

1. Caused hundreds of gallons of raw sewage to be dumped into Mobile Bay, Alabama [USA Today] (thanks @isawitwritten)
2. Squirrel responsible for Amtrak delays along Northeast corridor [NJ.com]
3. “Kamikaze squirrel fell from the sky and detonated” a woman’s car in Bayonne, NJ [NJ.com]
4. Caused up to 30,000 households to lose water, leading water department to issue a ‘boil water notice’ “to ensure that harmful bacteria and other microbes are destroyed.” [Star-Telegram]
5. Took out half of Yahoo’s Santa Clara data center [Wired] [Youtube]
6. Caused up to 560k Florida residents to live under “unprecedented 48 hour boil water notice” to “ensure the safety of their water.” [Tampa Bay Times]
7. Burns a Romford, Essex man’s garage down, causing £20,000 worth of damage [METRO]
8. Starts a fire that burns pastor’s home and 3 others in Florida [Huffington Post]
9. Shut down a nuclear reactor from 100 percent power in Wolf Creek, Kansas [All Things Nuclear] (thanks @ChrisSistrunk)
10. Broke into a truck causing $700 in damages [Anti-squirrel]

Remember, you can always follow @MylarSquirrel and @CyberSquirrel1 for more squirrel-related power outages and mayhem!