Power restored in Downtown Detroit after major outage

DETROIT - City officials say power has been fully restored to government buildings, schools and other facilities after a major cable failure caused parts of the city to go dark.

The city announced at 5:15 p.m. Tuesday that all customers affected by the outage had their power back.

The outage affected multiple buildings in downtown Detroit on Tuesday, including the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, and Joe Louis Arena.

The downtown electrical grid failed at around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, impacting 100 Detroit Public Lighting Department customers, reports CBS Detroit.

"The city's public lighting grid suffered a major cable failure that has caused the entire grid to lose power," the city said in a statement. "The outage is affecting all customers on the PLD grid. We have isolated the issue and are working to restore power as soon as possible."

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said one-third of affected customers were back online by 2 p.m.

Shortly before 3 p.m., power was restored to Joe Louis Arena, in plenty of time for the Red Wings v. Panthers game which will go on as planned. A morning skate was canceled due to the outage.

Through the day streets lights were out, as well as power to some buildings on the campus Wayne State University.

Several public schools and firehouses were also without power. Detroit Public Schools announced it would close all schools early Tuesday due to the outage.

The Detroit People Mover temporarily suspended service due to the outage, and the Detroit Historical Museum and Detroit Institute of Arts announced they would be closed for the rest of the day.

An official with the Detroit Fire Department told CBS News the outage is not affecting residential areas, and is instead only hitting the Public Lighting Division. Its cause is still unknown.

Detroit-based DTE Energy Co., which often assists the city with power issues, says it's checking into the problem and would have information soon.

DTE Energy is in the process of taking control of the city's power grid and Public Lighting Department and will be in charge of the work to fix this latest problem.

During the outage, there were several elevators where people were stuck inside. People were being rescued in the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in downtown Detroit

Numerous buildings were evacuated.

Power out at Frank Murphy. Building evacuated @WWJ950 @CBSDetroit pic.twitter.com/Zv6Ibmh5Xs

-- marie osborne (@marieosbornewwj) December 2, 2014

All lights out at Woodward and Jefferson. Traffic is backing up. pic.twitter.com/2RkcfrWnDV

-- ChristineFerretti_DN (@cferretti_dn) December 2, 2014

Another power failure at JLA. Much of downtown Detroit without power. pic.twitter.com/nKJmHNDfZt

-- Bob Duff (@asktheduffer) December 2, 2014

Officials are indicating there's a problem with the downtown power grid.

Officials at the Detroit Medical Center, which is operating on a backup system during the outage, attributed the problem to "outdated public lighting department equipment."

"DRH leadership emphasized the fact that all patients are safe and being well cared for," reads a statement from the hospital. "All emergency power systems are working effectively. Detroit Medical Center (DMC) facility leadership and DTE, from whom the DMC buys all of it's power, is working together with PLD to resolve the problem."

All emergency trauma patients were being diverted to other trauma level 1 institutions, including Henry Ford and St. John's Main, as a precaution.

Mayor Mike Duggan says the power grid hasn't been modernized in decades in Detroit, which is emerging from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. DTE Energy Co. is taking over the department and upgrading the system.

Attributed to "system overload," a widespread Detroit Public Lighting outage in the summer of 2013 shut down power to WSU, the courthouse, the City-County building, and midtown museums for two days.