Cleveland Public Power has now restored electricity to downtown Cleveland and the East side locations that were subject to a blackout early this morning. Power is being restored in stages to homes and businesses on the west side. The city expects to have all the power restored by 9:00 a.m.
The power failure began a few minutes before 4:00 a.m. with a malfunction at CPP's North Marginal substation. The malfunction there set off a chain reaction that tripped off a series of relays knocking out power to an estimated 20-thousand homes, businesses and some schools.
CPP marketing manager Shelley Shockley says it's not yet clear why the malfunction occurred.