More than 3,000 households and businesses were affected by power outages in the State College area on Sunday afternoon after a downed tree fell on utility lines, according to West Penn Power.
Power was restored to most customers by 7:30 p.m. on Sunday.
The outage began at 12:34 p.m. when a cherry tree on a property outside of West Penn’s right of way fell on a utility pole carrying carrying two power lines, according to spokesperson Todd Meyers.
“The higher voltage line near the top of the pole momentarily contacted a lower voltage line attached beneath it further down the pole, causing an electrical condition that damaged a circuit breaker in one of our substations in State College,” Meyers wrote in an email. “Other power lines that radiate from the substation were impacted due to the damaged substation breaker, and lost power as well. That interconnectivity is what caused the outage to be fairly widespread, impacting 3,300 West Penn Power customers.”
Two circuits were restored at around 3 p.m., returning electricity to more than half of affected customers before the remaining outages were restored in the early evening.
In State College, 2,506 customers in State College were affected, representing more than a fifth of West Penn customers in the borough. College Township had 498 outages, Harris Township had 208 and Ferguson Township had 13. Service in the townships was mostly restored by 4:30 p.m.
Schlow Centre Region Library was among the locations without power and was unable to open.
Meyer Dairy Store was temporarily closed because of the outage but reported it had reopened around 3 p.m. when its power was restored.
