Power goes out to almost 8,000 Milwaukee customers

MILWAUKEE (AP) - A power failure knocked out electricity for several hours to nearly 8,000 customers in downtown Milwaukee.
    
We Energies spokeswoman Cathy Schulze says an equipment failure at a substation caused the outage about 4:45 p.m. Friday. There were reports of a flash when the failure happened.
    
The power failure also affected traffic signals, prompting police to direct traffic at several intersections. The affected areas also included Marquette University.
    
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that power was restored to the roughly 7,700 customers just before 9 p.m., more than four hours after the outage was reported.