Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News) - A large area of downtown Rochester was affected by a major power outage this afternoon.

Rochester Public Utilities is indicating a blown lightning arrester on a 161-kilovolt transmission line was to blame for the outage around 3 p.m. RPU is estimating that around 11,000 customers were affected. Spokesman Tony Benson says, along with much of the downtown, the malfunction resulted in scattered outages throughout the city that lasted until around 3:40 p.m.

The outage left numerous intersections in downtown Rochester and other areas of the city without functioning traffic signals and the Fire Department reported that it responded to several rescues from stalled elevators.

With updates at the top and bottom of the hour, listen to Newstalk 1340 KROC-AM for the latest local and national news.

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