An equipment failure near the Androscoggin hydroelectric plant caused a power outage that left roughly 2,500 customers in Brunswick and parts of Bowdoin’s north campus in the dark last Saturday morning.

The outage occurred when a heedless squirrel damaged circuit equipment near Sea Dog Brewing in Topsham, according to Manager of Corporate Communications for Central Maine Power (CMP) Catharine Hartnett.

The outage began at around 7:30 a.m. and lasted until power was restored shortly before noon. Buildings on the north loop, which includes the David Saul Smith Union, as well as Morrell and Sargent Gyms, briefly lost power again around 4 p.m. as CMP restored the Brunswick area to its regular power source. Because of the timing of the outage, no scheduled campus events were affected.

The outage was the first time that the College was forced to use a new generator, installed last summer in the parking lot behind Smith Union, to power major buildings on the north campus loop, Interim Director of Facilities Operations & Maintenance Jeff Tuttle explained.

“It’s real helpful, especially for prolonged outages. If that were to happen—hopefully it doesn’t—then we have a ton of capability to put people in Sargent, put people in Smith, put people all over,” said Tuttle.

Andrew Bastone contributed to this report.