Thousands Lose Power After Ephrata Substation Explosion

EPHRATA (AP) — Authorities say 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.

KREM-TV reports a fault in the power line called an arc flash caused an explosion of light and sparks which started fires in downtown Ephrata.

Utility officials said the 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 said no injuries were reported.