Exact cause for the outages unknown.
An electrical malfunction caused at least two businesses and several apartments to partially lose power Monday night.
Shelby Blashford, a junior studying communication, said she heard a bang and saw sparks coming from a wire outside her second floor window at 67½ S. Court St. around 7 p.m.
“We’re not sure exactly what it was,” she said. “It just snapped.”
The second floor and third floor of that building lost part of its power, Court Street Coffee, 67 S. Court St., and Little Professor Book Center, 65 S. Court St., both of which had to close early.
Two Athens Fire Department Trucks arrived at the scene around 7:10 p.m.
“We’re not sure exactly what’s going on,” said Capt. Bruce Smith.
Smith said they called American Electric Power, and that workers from the company were on the way to assess the problem.
Court Street Coffee lost power to its espresso machine and cash register, and many of the overhead lights, said owner Debby Fulks.
Fulks said she thought the outage was due to a blown transformer, although Smith could not confirm that was the case.
“After what happened on Union, they can’t be too careful,” she said.
Terri Flora, a spokesperson for AEP, said 11 customers lost power.
"Right now we have crews on the way to figure out what's going on," she said.
Smith said AEP may not have power back up to the buildings until 10 p.m.
