Power out for southwest Eugene neighborhoods

EUGENE, Ore. -- A widespread power outage hit southwest Eugene Saturday afternoon, in an area that extends from Chambers Street, west of south 18th to Bailey Hill Road. 

In a statement officials from the Eugene Water and Electric Board said that the failure of relay switches and other equipment are the cause of Saturday's outages. The failures happened along West 28th avenue, and at the Hawkins Substation.

In total, EWEB said that 1,100 homes in southwest Eugene were affected by Saturday's outage.

Customers initially lost power after the equipment failed at around 1:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon. EWEB said in a recorded message that the power would be restored by 4 p.m., however they extended the return time to 6 p.m. Saturday night.

Crews worked on the mechanical failures and EWEB reported that by 3:40 p.m. they had returned over 500 residents and by 6 p.m. that number was close to 800.

In a statement released last night EWEB said that it hoped to have power returned to all of its customers by midnight as crews worked at the substation and other problem areas.