EBENSBURG, Pa. – Monday was Groundhog Day at the Cambria County Courthouse, but actor Bill Murray and Punxsutawney Phil weren’t among the participants.

Dan Zakraysek, highway safety coordinator for Cambria County, Pennsylvania, arrived in his basement office on Monday morning to find that a woodchuck had broken into the office and appeared to have spent the weekend.

The animal had chewed through a plastic extender on a window air conditioning unit on the north side of the building near one of the cement-floor enclosed spaces around the courthouse.

“It was climbing the walls; there were paw prints up the wall,” Zakraysek’s assistant, Susan Cymbor, said, adding that the animal was “in a panic” and trying to get out of the office.

The woodchuck had overturned a waste basket and chewed the electric cord on an apartment-sized refrigerator in Zakraysek’s office as well as the charger cord for his cellphone. It also mangled papers and files on the desk and around the office.

“The office was in disarray. It really was a mess,” Zakraysek said. “I saw the ripped blinds and I saw little muddy paw prints on the wall.”

Maintenance workers, left to clean up the mess the woodchuck had left on the carpet, found the animal wedged between an office wall and a tall storage cabinet.

It was shooed into a tall trash can and taken outside to be released.

“We took it over to an orchard the county owns,” said maintenance man Rick Havrilla. “I understand it met up with another groundhog and they ran off hand in hand.”

Mellott writes for the Johnstown (Pa.) Tribune-Democrat.