Wednesday’s power outage caused by equipment failure at substation, Avista says

An equipment failure at an Avista Utilities substation east of downtown caused the power outage experienced by thousands of customers for more than an hour Wednesday evening.

Nearly 10,000 people in downtown Spokane, East Central and the South Hill lost power about 9:15 p.m.

The outage spanned from Gonzaga University to East Central, past areas of Cannon’s Addition and up to 30th Avenue, according to Wednesday night’s outage map on Avista’s website.

The equipment failure happened at Avista’s substation off Third Avenue and Hatch Street, Avista spokesman David Vowels said. Power was restored by 10:40 p.m. Wednesday.