Outage Darkens South Coast Plaza Wing : Power failure: A transformer short circuit forces closure of mall’s west wing. Two stores are forced to shut down for the remainder of the day.

A power outage closed the west side of South Coast Plaza on Tuesday, including two Bullock’s stores that sent their employees home for the day.

A transformer apparently short-circuited in an underground vault at 3:22 p.m., knocking the vault’s concrete lid loose and causing the outage in the side of the mall facing Bear Street, said Edison’s area manager, Charles Wilson.

While most stores were without power for about an hour and half, Bullock’s and Bullock’s Men’s Store, which opened on July 8, closed for the day. Nordstrom switched to its own generator.

“First the light flickered off,” said Paul Gainer, an assistant manager with Toys International. “Then, it flickered back on and then it went out again.”

Gainer said the toy store was closed for about 90 minutes, and the west wing was eerily quiet.

“We just all got flashlights and tried to work, doing some inventory and straightening things up, to get the store ready for when the power came back,” he said.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” said Josette Varrato, who works for Esprit clothing shop. “We just closed the door and sat out front for a while.”

At Nordstrom, where the generator was activated, the outage “didn’t affect that much because customers were able to come into the store and shop,” an employee said.

Although its kitchen was closed during the outage, Vie de France Bakery and Restaurant took advantage of the mall’s skylight and kept its bakery display window open, said Manager Francoise Cuzor.

“The skylight lights gave the bakery some light so we were able to sell from it,” Cuzor said. “The employees actually had fun, sitting around and talking.”

The night manager at Magic Pan International Restaurant, Nick Wassil, said the outage gave the restaurant a more romantic ambience.

“We had just switched to dinner hours and had just finished lighting the candles,” Wassil said. “The timing was very well considering it was light enough to see what we were doing and dark enough for the restaurant to look good.”

By 4:33 p.m., it was business as usual for everyone but Bullock’s and Bullocks Men’s Store. The two stores were closed for the day because the power line with the failure fed directly to Bullock’s, Wilson said.

Both stores are expected to resume business today, Wilson said.

The cause of the short circuit is being investigated.