Power back to nearly 30,000 houses, businesses in Iowa City

IOWA CITY - UPDATE 7:26 p.m.: MidAmerican Energy spokesperson Debra Blume had some more info on the power outage.

'MidAmerican Energy experienced a substation equipment issue at one of its substations on the west side of Iowa City. The event resulted in an outage to approximately 29,000 customers in Iowa City and Coralville, including one of the substations serving the University of Iowa Campus and hospitals,” Blume said in an email statement.

The equipment problem was isolated, and transmission switching was performed to re-energize the customers affected.

UPDATE 4:31 p.m.: All power in Iowa has been restored to the thousands of affected MidAmerican Energy customers as of 4:13 p.m., according to Debra Blume, a spokesperson for the company.

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A representative from MidAmerican Energy say those affected by the power outage in Johnson County should have power restored shortly.

The outage affected as many as 30,000 homes and businesses, including about 21,000 in Iowa City, and about 5,000 in Coralville, according to the MidAmerican Energy website. According to the MidAmerican outage map on its website, the power outage also affected customers in University Heights and North Liberty.

The outage was caused by a bad feeder line, and was first reported at about 2:25 p.m., said Debra Blume, a spokesperson for MidAmerican Energy.

Blume said crews were currently working to switch customers over to different circuits, then they will begin repair work.

The Iowa City school district has canceled any after school activities, including athletic practices, due to the outage that reached across the district, according to a tweet from the Iowa City Community School District Twitter account.

More information will become available as it's learned.

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