Equipment failure at a Duke Energy substation left about 5,700 people without power in Orange County this morning.
But power has been mostly restored to the area, according to the Duke Energy website’s outages section.
“The early indication is that we had a problem with a piece of equipment at a substation starting at 7:45 a.m. this morning, impacting 5700 customers,” said Paige Sheehan, spokeswoman for Duke Energy.
Sheehan said she didn’t know which piece of equipment malfunctioned, or its location.
Lt. Kevin Gunter, spokesman for Chapel Hill police, said officers responded quickly at intersections to direct traffic. He added that he did not know of any car accidents that happened as a result of the outages.
Sheehan said Duke Energy crews identified the problem quickly, and were able to restore power to 3,600 people at 9:15 a.m.
UNC Hospitals lost power in some parts of its facility, said Dalton Sawyer, director of emergency preparedness and continuity planning for UNC Healthcare.
But Sawyer said the facility’s generators started immediately, and the building never fully lost power.
