Raccoon Causes Widespread Power Outage (UPDATED)

Update, 12:47 p.m.: JCP&L is reporting that power to all customers has been restored.

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Update, 10:45 a.m.: Brayton School is closed for the day.

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Original story:

An outage impacting 3,000 customers, including two Summit public schools, Thursday morning was caused by a raccoon that entered a Summit substation, according to JCP&L spokesman Gerry Ricciardi.

Ricciardi said the utility received a report of an outage shortly after 2 a.m. Crews determined that a Summit substation bank was offline with fuses opened up, he said. 

"A raccoon got into the substation and took the bank out of service," Ricciardi said shortly before 9 a.m. "A total of 3,000 customers were affected. Six hundred were restored by 7 a.m. Another 900 will be restored momentarily and the remaining 1,500 should be restored by approximately noon today." 

Brayton and Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School had delayed openings Thursday as a result of the outage. Power has been restored to the middle school and classes are expected to begin at 9:55 a.m. 

Summit Police urge caution for motorists and pedestrians, as many traffic signals are not working. A warming center at 100 Morris Ave. will serve as a safe space for people whose homes are too cold, according to Summit Police. 

Patch will post updates to this article as they become available from JCP&L.