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Power outage left thousands of Davenport residents without electricity

Officials with MidAmerican Energy said that an underground wire caught fire, sparking the outage, but most customers have had their power restored.

DAVENPORT, Iowa — MidAmerican says around 5,600 customers lost power in the downtown Davenport area Tuesday evening.

According to a MidAmerican spokesperson, the outage occurred around 5:23 p.m., after underground wiring caught fire. The fire has been put out, but the cause of the fire is unknown. 

At that time, Davenport fire crews were focused on Harrison and 3rd Street, where smoke was billowing out from a manhole. Several blocks downtown were closed to traffic.

News 8 spoke with residents in the area. Some said they heard a "boom" before the power went out. Alex Bonilla had just gotten off of work and couldn't get to his apartment. "All of the doors use key fobs to get in, so without power, I can't get in right now," he said. "Little bit confused because I didn't know about this, I checked my emails, checked my voicemail."

Most power was restored by 6:45 p.m. MidAmerican crews continued to work past 10:00 p.m., but roads are now reopened, and almost all traffic signals restored.

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