UPDATE 2:32 Broken power lines on Magnolia Avenue caused power outages in downtown Auburn on gameday, police said.
Battalion Chief Joe Lovvorn said the outages — which began around noon — were "from Thach Avenue all the way to the railroad track, and from Anders Bookstore down to as Far East as Ross."
"One of the high-voltage lines had a power surge downtown in one the three phases," Lovvorn said.
Temporary power was restored in the core of downtown around 2 p.m.
The intersection lights on Gay Street and Magnolia Avenue weren't functioning, causing officers to direct heavy traffic for a couple hours before the lights eventually came back on around 2 p.m., said Captain Scott Mingus.
It's not clear what caused the power lines to break, police said.
"I have no idea, but we're just trying to make things flow as quickly as possible for gameday," Mingus said.
Caroline Huggins, a worker at Fusion, said the power outage was disrupting their gameday plans.
"A lot of us are losing business here. Even though the power is back now, we have to restart the ovens and reboot the systems, so we won't be able to get thing going for a while," she said. "And people wanted to pay too, but all of our credit card machines were out."
She said they were busy posting on social media that the power was back on.
UPDATE 2:09 Battalion Chief Joe Lovvorn said there's temporary power restored in the "core of downtown," but that they're still waiting on "larger resources to come from Alabama Power to restore permanent power."
UPDATE 2:01 Intersection lights on Gay Street and Magnolia Avenue are functioning. Restaurants on the south side of Magnolia, near where Hamilton's is located, are still in operation. Restaurants in the north side of Magnolia are without power.
Broken power lines on Magnolia Avenue are causing power outages in downtown Auburn on gameday, police say.
Battalion Chief Joe Lovvorn said there are outages "from Thach Avenue all the way to the railroad track, and from Anders Bookstore down to as Far East as Ross."
"One of the high-voltage lines had a power surge downtown in one the three phases," Lovvorn said.
Captain Scott Mingus said the broken power lines are causing the traffic signals to not work, meaning officers are having to direct traffic on Magnolia Avenue and Gay Street, he said.
Mingus said they're still not sure why the power lines broke.
"I have no idea, but we're just trying to make things flow as quickly as possible for gameday," he said.
Lovvorn said Alabama Power is hoping to have everything restored in one or two hours.
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Eduardo Medina, senior in journalism, is the editor-in-chief of The Auburn Plainsman.
