VENTURA : Power Outage Hits Over 2,000 Customers

More than 2,000 mid-town customers of Southern California Edison, including the Ventura County Government Center, lost power for about an hour Monday afternoon when an underground connector failed, company officials said.

The 1:55 p.m. outage initially caused a 30-second power interruption for about 4,300 customers--in an area bordered by Mills Road to the west, Wells Road to the east, Foothill Road to the north and Telephone Road to the south, according to Edison spokesman Mike Montoya.

Backup generators kicked in at the government center, but about half of the affected customers did not regain electrical service for an hour, he said. Aside from a few people stuck briefly in elevators, no major problems occurred, said county spokesman Tom Womack.

Another 220 Edison customers did not see their power back on until about 7 p.m., after crews completed repairs on the faulty equipment near Johnson Avenue and Thille Street, Montoya said.