Animal may have triggered outages

Nearly 6,000 Avista Utilities customers were without power Tuesday morning when fuses blew at a substation near Francis Avenue and Cedar Street on Spokane’s North Side. Anna Scarlett, an Avista spokeswoman, said fuses were replaced shortly after the 5:13 a.m. outage. Power to about half of the customers was restored by 6 a.m. Power to the rest of the customers was back on line by 6:42 a.m., she said. The cause of the damage was not determined, although Avista workers suspect an animal may have triggered the outage.