Update 8:05 p.m.: Power was restored to most affected locations as of 8 p.m. Monday.
More than 5,000 homes and businesses in the State College area were without power on Monday afternoon as temperatures climbed into the mid-90s during the region’s first heat wave of the year.
Ferguson Township had the most outages as of 4 p.m., with more than 4,300, according to West Penn Power. More than 700 West Penn Power customers in State College also lost power, along with 100 in Patton Township. A small number of outages also occurred in College and Harris townships.
Restoration efforts were underway and by 4:40 p.m. the number of outages through Centre County was down to 3,133, including 2,897 in Ferguson Township.
Centre County dispatch reported a blown transformer on the 1300 block of West College Avenue in Ferguson Township at about 2:50 p.m. West Penn Power spokesperson Todd Meyers said the problem appears to have originated at the west side substation near Pine Grove Mills and crews were investigating the root cause while bringing affected customers back online.
“Our approach, especially in the heat, is to get customers back on as quickly as possible,” Meyers said. “So what we’ve been doing, and the reason you see the numbers coming down, is we are feeding those customers using different power lines from some other nearby substations while we investigate the cause.”
For most affected areas, West Penn Power listed estimated restoration by 6:30 p.m. A small number of outages in the Orchard Park area of State College had an estimated restoration of 8 p.m.
“It’s pretty typical to reconfigure the network so we can get those customers going,” Meyers said. “We don’t want to just find the cause and then fix it and then get the customers back on —especially on a hot day like this, because we understand that nobody wants to be without power today, So we’re trying to get them back as fast as we can.”
The outages affected some traffic lights, and Centre County 911 reminded drivers in a Facebook post to treat them as a stop sign.
Residents were asked not to call 911 about power outages unless they need immediate medical assistance.
Outages can be reported to West Penn Power by calling 1-888-544-4877 or online.
