UPDATE: Shortly before 8 p.m. on Friday, electric service was restored in St. Clair.
A borough-wide power outage on the hottest day of the year has closed businesses and left residents to bake in St. Clair on Friday.
Power went out at about 2:30 p.m. According to the PPL Electric Outage Map, the reason for the outage is a tripped breaker or blown fuse.
St. Clair, however, manages its own power company, but outages are still reported through PPL.
In the meantime, while residents go without any fans or air conditioning to keep cool as temperatures reach the mid-90s, many popular businesses have been forced to close for the night.
Typically a packed place on Friday nights, the parking lots at Coal Creek Commerce Center were a ghost town. Popular restaurants and others shops, including the Walmart Supercenter, have signs on their doors informing customers of the power outage.
In downtown St. Clair, the owner of OIP, Mario Coniglario says he expects to lose up to $6,000 in sales on what’s usually a very busy night for his restaurant.
Elsewhere, traffic lights throughout the borough are being operated through the use of power generators until electric service is restored.
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