CARROLLTON -- A cat went from meow to ow when officials say it accidentally made contact with a substation's fuse, causing an outage to about 1,500 homes and businesses in southwestern Illinois.

The feline apparently survived the encounter early Monday in the Greene County city of Carrollton.

Workers responding to the outage found the cat still on the ground several feet from where it apparently touched the fuse. An Ameren spokeswoman says the animal eventually managed to get up and walk away.

Most of the affected Ameren customers had their power restored within hours.