WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — The power is back on, and officials at UPMC Williamsport say operations are back to normal at the hospital. Even so, it's still unclear what caused the power to go out.
According to PPL, the power went out at UPMC Williamsport just before 7 p.m. Thursday. It took about an hour for the backup generators to turn on.
PPL says the outage started at the hospital and was related to an equipment issue.
"As a result, our equipment automatically stopped the flow of power on the line to minimize the number of customers affected. PPL was able to provide the hospital service through another line."
The outage left more than 400 nearby homes and businesses without power until just after midnight.
A spokesperson for UPMC said no one was available to talk to Newswatch 16 on camera but said in a statement that the hospital is looking into what happened and making a plan to prevent it from happening again.
"The UPMC Williamsport staff adeptly addressed patient care and implemented contingency procedures to ensure the hospital could continue to operate with minimal disruption."
That spokesperson said two patients were transferred to other facilities during the outage. All other patients were cared for without interruption because machinery, including ventilators, is battery-powered. Several ambulances stationed outside the hospital Thursday night were there in case they were needed.
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