Residents often take to posting photos of snakes, spiders and other creepy crawlers for identification in social media groups online, but one slithering serpent has been blamed for more than an unsettling photo.

Sawnee EMC, an electric services provider for most of Forsyth County and seven other counties in north Georgia, experienced a power outage at its Matt and Friendship substations in west Forsyth about 4:18 a.m. Tuesday, July 18, affecting 9,341 accounts the morning after a fast-approaching and intense storm rolled through Forsyth and knocked power out to another estimated 3,500 customers.

“The root cause of the outage is still under investigation,” said Blake House, vice president of member services, “but all indications thus far are that a snake encountered an energized portion of our equipment inside the Matt substation.”

House said it is “regrettable” the event occurred and apologized for the inconvenience.

Service was restored to the Friendship substation at about 6:15 a.m. Tuesday and to all remaining accounts by about 6:18 a.m.