Widespread Power Outage Affects Thousands in Centre County, Disrupts Traffic Lights on North Atherton Street

A widespread power outage on Tuesday evening affected more than 2,400 homes and business in Centre County and disrupted traffic lights on North Atherton Street for several hours.

Service was mostly restored throughout the area by 9 p.m. on Tuesday after an outage that a West Penn Power spokesperson said resulted from a circuit lockout. A lockout can be triggered by a variety of causes and force power to shut off in a certain area.

The outage caused traffic signals to go out on North Atherton Street between Woodycrest Street and Valley Vista Drive in Patton Township, according to Centre County 9-1-1. Emergency responders were dispatched to the scene shortly before 5 p.m. for traffic control.

The largest number of outages was in Patton Township, where 1,802 customers — more than a quarter of all West Penn Power customers in the township — were without power as of 6 p.m. Most of those outages were in Gray’s Woods and Park Forest Village.

Outages also affected 304 West Penn customers in Halfmoon Township, 182 in Ferguson Township, 57 in Port Matilda, 35 in State College, 31 in Worth Township and 10 in College Township.