1,094 without power for 2 hours

Power to 1,094 Marion County residences and businesses failed for two hours Friday because of equipment failure on one of several transmission lines serving the area, a Westar Energy spokesman said Tuesday.

Last week Westar reported only 446 had been affected.

Power failed around 9:45 a.m. Friday in portions of Marion, Florence, Peabody, and the area around Marion Reservoir. It was restored around 11:45 a.m.

Power remained on at some homes and businesses within the blackout area because they are served by different transmission lines, Westar said. Westar said the outage was likely caused by a tree or animal hitting a large transmission line.

Marion County Courthouse and Jail and the Marion waterworks were affected by the blackout but continued operations using emergency backup generators.

Greg Carlson said the outage caused his cash registers and air conditioner to fail at Carlsons’ Grocery.

“It was a mess for a while,” he said. “We blew a hose in our generator, but I was able to go home and get mine so we were up and running.”

Customers received a crash course in old-fashioned adding when employees of Carlsons’ handed out paper and pencils for them to write and add their prices with.

In Peabody, Morgan Marler had to manually pump water into the water tower via a back-up generator in case of fires caused by the city’s July Fourth celebration.