UNION COUNTY -- Thousands were without power for nearly 12 hours Monday in Northumberland and Union Counties.
Outages impacted Evangelical Community Hospital near Lewisburg and canceled school at Montandon Elementary.
A PPL spokesperson tells us a simple problem caused all this and it's one the company is spending big bucks to correct.
PPL workers were still in the neighborhood hours after the whole power problem started in West Milton, startling neighbors in the middle of the night
"I heard a pop out there this morning, outside the window, I don't know what's out there," recalled Patricia Burns of Kelly Township.
What's out there are older wooden poles and PPL says the arm of one of them broke, knocking out power to more than 8,000 homes and businesses.
What happened had an impact in numerous parts of Union and Northumberland Counties.
"It is difficult because I have a farm and I have horses and we couldn't water the horses. We had to wait for it to come on," said David Styring.
"We came down here to get coffee and relax for a while. You don't have power and you live out in the country. You don't have anything. You don't have water. You don't have sewage. You don't have anything," said Brad Povich.
It was a pole problem that impacted a hospital, school, and other businesses.
"We recognize this has been an inconvenience to those institutions and their customers and our customers and we're apologizing about that, looking to make sure that doesn't happen again," said PPL official Teri MacBride.
But PPL says this is a reason it is spending around $1 billion a year to upgrade its system. This spot near Milton is just one location getting new poles and lines to prevent these problems.
"This is an example where an older wooden pole failed and we will be making a repair to that pole, and as we go about fixing the whole system, that whole pole could be replaced," MacBride explained.
The power problem that first started around 1 a.m. was mostly resolved by noon, but there were still spotty outages Monday afternoon as PPL worked on repairs.
Click here for latest power outage info from PPL.