1800+ OPU customers lose power Wednesday

Hundreds of Owatonna Public Utilities (OPU) customers in central Owatonna lost power Wednesday afternoon, with the outage expected to last more than two hours.

According to an outage map posted on the company’s website, power went out around 3:45 p.m. across a long, north-south section of town. In a Facebook post, OPU described the cause as a contractor who “accidentally hit something they shouldn't have hit.”

OPU was among 1,849 business and residential customers affected by the outage.

UPDATE: Power was restored at 5:40 p.m.

This is a developing story. Additional information will be added as it becomes available.