A broken switch Thursday at a West Penn Power substation knocked out service to more than 7,000 utility customers in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties.
More than half of impacted customers had power restored by 11 a.m., according to the FirstEnergy website. Power to all customers was restored by 2:30 p.m.
West Penn spokesman Todd Meyers said workers were completing maintenance work at a substation in South Versailles and were transferring power from one set of equipment to another to maintain power. He said a switch broke, knocking out power to thousands of customers in eastern Allegheny and western Westmoreland counties.
The incident occurred about 9 a.m.
“When you have something like that occur at a substation, it can take out a lot of customers, which is what happened here,” Meyers said.
