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LANDRUM— On Tuesday, a large power outage impacted downtown Landrum and other areas, forcing many businesses to close and leaving residents to spend hours without electricity.

Duke Power customers in Landrum, Campobello and Gowensville were affected by the outage, which occurred around 12:30 p.m. A representative of Duke Power told the Bulletin that the outage was due to equipment failure and affected around 1,100 customers.

“We closed for the day around 2 o’ clock,” an employee of one business in downtown Landrum said Wednesday. “We couldn’t continue the work day with the phone system and computers down.”

Most customers said their power was restored by 3:30 p.m. and many businesses were up and running shortly after.

Some businesses chose to remain open during the outage, including O’Darby’s Liquor Barn in Landrum.

“We decided to stay open,” said Danielle, the store manager of O’Darby’s. “We want to do whatever we can to make sure we can serve our customers.” She added that customers were shopping in the store using flashlights and cash only.

Traffic flow in downtown Landrum was also affected due to the traffic lights not being operational. Chief Coffin of the Landrum Police Department posted on social media reminding drivers to use caution in the area and to treat traffic lights as a four-way stop.

Duke Power’s website showed only four outages in our area on Wednesday.