Power restored to 1,300 in southwest Columbia

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

More than 1,300 City of Columbia electric customers were without power on Thursday evening.

The city’s outage map shows 1,336 customers in southwest Columbia were without power in neighborhoods near Scott Boulevard. An outage was reported near Rainbow Trout Drive at 6:57 p.m., according to the map.

Residents in the neighborhood south of Fairview Elementary School were without power. An ABC 17 News reporter saw power was lost at the Crossroads Shopping Center at Stadium and Broadway.

A neighbor on Kenwood Drive told the reporter they saw branches fall from a tree and hit a transformer. Utilities spokesman Jason West told the same details to ABC 17 News. The transformer let out a bright green “explosion” that occurred multiple times, the neighbor said.

Columbia Water and Light wrote on its social media that the outage was caused by "an open circuit due to a transformer that caught on fire."

A firetruck was on the scene while the reporter was there. The outage map showed power appeared to be restored around 8:15 p.m.

ABC 17 News has reached out to city utilities. ABC 17 News is working to learn more information.