Over 1,000 West Penn Power customers in the central part of Butler County, including in Center and Butler townships, were without electricity for several hours on Thursday, July 9, due to what the company described as an equipment failure.

According to the company’s outage tracker, the bulk of the outages were in Center Township.

Although the tracker indicated the cause was “inclement weather,” a spokeswoman for FirstEnergy, West Penn Power’s parent company, said the issue was due to equipment failure.

“Approximately 1,200 customers were without power for about three hours this morning after a piece of equipment failed during routine operations,” said FirstEnergy spokesperson Bridget McNie. “To restore service as quickly as possible, crews rerouted customers on the affected circuit to neighboring circuits while repairs were completed, minimizing the duration of the outage and safely returning customers to service.”