About 2,000 electricity customers lost power early yesterday afternoon in the State College area, coinciding with a power outage that occurred on campus during the same time period.

Paul Ruskin, spokesman for the Office of Physical Plant (OPP), said a squirrel was responsible for causing a small power outage on campus during the early afternoon hours.

"It was a case of furry creatures being in the wrong place at the wrong time," Ruskin said of the animal that had crawled into one of the university's power substations.

Sgt. John Gardner of the State College Police Department said police were dispatched to the intersection of College Avenue and Atherton Street at 1:14 p.m. because a power outage caused the traffic signal there to malfunction. Officers erected temporary barricades and directed traffic until technicians from Allegheny Power restored power at about 2:40 p.m.

A representative from Allegheny Power said a team of technicians was dispatched to the State College area yesterday to isolate and correct an underground electrical problem. The representative could not comment on the location of the malfunction or how long it would take to restore power.

Ruskin was unable to confirm if the University Park outage was connected to the outage in the borough or at which on-campus substation the squirrel problem occurred. OPP personnel at the scene had not filed a report on the incident before the end of the business day yesterday, he said.

Ruskin added it was possible a transformer problem could cause an outage off campus, "if the malfuction occurred upstream enough in the system."

Officials at Allegheny Power's corporate office were unavailable to comment yesterday on whether the on- and off-campus outages were officially connected.