Thousands of Butler County residents were without power Tuesday morning, Oct. 7, including a Moniteau School District building.

The outage was the result of a damaged pole in the area of Butler Memorial Hospital that prompted the interconnected systems to take out power for more than 3,000 Butler County customers, including those outside that immediate area, Todd Meyers, a FirstEnergy spokesperson, said.

Meyers said the top of the pole had burned off for an unknown reason, triggering the widespread outage. He said the electric company worked quickly to restore power for most customers by 8:05 a.m. and had power restored for all effected customers by 8:40 a.m.

Dassa McKinney Elementary operated on a two-hour delay due to power outages, the district announced on its website. The bulk of the remaining outages in the county affected the northern and eastern portions with almost 3,350 without power in the area, according to the FirstEnergy outage map.

In the areas of Chicora and Donegal Township, FirstEnergy reported 1,152 outages this morning, and about 700 outages were reported just west of the area in Oakland Township and East Butler.

About 1,186 outages were reported in the area surrounding West Sunbury in Clay and Brady Townships. Between the Chicora and West Sunbury areas, an additional 382 outages were reported in Concord Township.

Central Electric Cooperative is not reporting any outages in the area.