PITTSTON TOWNSHIP -- Homes, businesses, and an airport in Luzerne County lost power early Tuesday morning.
The dominoes started to tumble just before 3 a.m. Thousands of homes and businesses were without power. One of them was the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport.
PPL Electric said a total of about 1,600 homes and businesses lost electricity early Tuesday in the Avoca, Dupont, and Duryea areas.
PPL doesn't know why. All but 320 had their lights back on in 11 minutes.
At the airport, the emergency generator didn't kick on immediately and that caused some issues with runway lights. They finally got back on around 3:30 a.m. Luckily, the first arrivals and departures of the day happen around 6 a.m.
Power problems persisted most of the morning at the airport. Some passengers weren't sure whether they'd fly or bus to their destination. It turns out, they were able to fly.
Airport director Barry Centini explained how they got back in business.
"We were able to keep our power on through the generators. About 8:45, we lost all power again. It was our switch gear that had malfunctioned. We think it was because of the spike. It was 10:40 when we were able to get back on. Our generator's operational. Everything is on now," Centini said.
Inspectors are looking over the system. They hope to switch back to PPL power Tuesday afternoon.
It turns out only one flight was affected. It was delayed for a couple of hours.
There was a power outage Monday morning affecting 1,700 homes and businesses in Scranton and Moosic. Everyone was back on in about two hours.
PPL says a transformer malfunctioned, and it's not related to what happened on Tuesday.
Also on Tuesday, about 800 homes and business in Monroe County lost power because of a downed tree along Route 390.
