Thousands lose power after Ephrata substation explosion

EPHRATA, Wash. (AP) - Authorities say around 8,000 customers in a small central Washington town were without power after an explosion at a public utility district substation.

The Grant County Sheriff's Office said on Facebook Wednesday evening that a Grant County Public Utility District substation caught fire in Ephrata at about 7 p.m. A fault in the power line called an arc flash caused an explosion of light and sparks. The fire spread to a nearby building owned by the utility.

Tom Stedwick with Grant PUD said most customers in Soap Lake, Quincy, and parts of Ephrata had their power restored by 2:30 AM Thursday, and linemen worked through the night to restore electricity to the remaining customers in Ephrata. cause of the outage was equipment failure in the Central Ephrata Substation and that customers there would be without power for several hours.

The sheriff's office and Stedwick confirmed that there were no injuries were reported.