An iguana caused a "large-scale outage" in Lake Worth Beach, Florida, last week. This was the city's third iguana-caused outage this year. According to a report in CNN, it impacted roughly 1,400 customers in Lake Worth Beach in Palm County. The City later tweeted that the power was restored within 35 minutes.
"LWB Electric Utility is currently responding to a large-scale outage caused by an iguana at our 6th Ave Substation. This outage is effecting customers in the South East area of our service territory. Our teams are working hard to repair the damage and restore the system," it said on the microblogging platform.
One woman commented on the city's Facebook post and said that the iguana in her neighbourhood "went up under the transformer or something but he blew it and he fried".
Lake Worth Beach in Palm County City spokesman Ben Kerr spoke to CNN and said that the outages because of the animal have happened thrice this year. "Every utility agency in Florida deals with this. It's a nightmare," he added. Mr Kerr further informed that "it's 50 percent down from last year."
According to Kerr, iguanas are more dangerous to electrical equipment than birds or squirrels because they are excellent climbers and have large bodies. "Unlike birds, the tail and sheer size of iguanas" helps them make a connection between two parts of the electrical system, he commented. This was most likely the source of the recent outage.
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As per the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, "green iguanas are not native to Florida and are considered an invasive species due to their impacts to native wildlife." They were also added to Florida's Prohibited species list.
"This species can be captured and humanely killed year-round and without a permit or hunting license on 25 public lands in south Florida," the commission noted.
