Major power outage in downtown South Bend

By: ABC57 Staff

Posted: May 16, 2014 8:26 AM EDT | Updated: Nov 6, 2014 1:49 AM EDT

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Downtown South Bend is without power leading into a big weekend. Notre Dame and St. Mary's are both holding commencement this weekend.

[If you need housing, rooms are available on the Notre Dame campus, call 574-631-7640 for arrangements.]

Indiana Michigan Power estimates power will be restored to downtown South Bend by noon on Sunday.

IMP said equipment in the downtown underground network caught fire around 10:30 p.m. Thursday at the intersection of Washington and Lafayette.

As of 7 a.m. Friday, the fire had been put out. Power crews were waiting for smoke to clear so they could assess the damage underground.

There are 800 customers, including 250 residential customers, without power.

AEP said crews from Fort Wayne and Columbus, Ohio are going to help.

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The areas without power are:

North of Sample

East of Chapin

South of Bartlett

West of the St. Joe River

Businesses, county and city buildings, residences and stoplights are all affected.

If a stoplight is out, treat the intersection as a four way stop.

Memorial Hospital is also affected by the outage. Spokeswoman Maggie Scroope said all of their downtown facilities including the main hospital, 100 Navarre, and others are without power, but running on back-up generators.

Scroope said several patients have been transferred to other facilities including Elkhart General and St. Joseph Regional Medical Center.

Memorial Hospital is still operating and if you need medial help you should still visit the closest hospital.

The South Bend Silver Hawks' game on Friday will be played. It's at 7:35 p.m. The stadium has power.

TRANSPO is running and the South Street station has power.

Click here for hotel availability

Click here for a list of what's open and what's closed (and see below)

Businesses that are open include: