ALTOONA, Pa. (WTAJ) — Power has been restored to thousands of Altoona residents following a mass outage that lasted for almost 6 hours.

Penelec reported a squirrel broke through an animal guard at the Westfall Substation along 17th Ave. and caused an equipment failure.

Most of the customers impacted by Thursday’s outage now have their power restored.

ORIGINAL STORY — Thousands of residents in Altoona were without power Thursday morning as crews work to restore service.

Over 5,000 customers in the city of Altoona were affected by the outage that occurred at 9 a.m., according to Penelec. First Energy Corp. Spokesperson Todd Meyers said an equipment failure at the Westfall Substation impacted a number of power lines that feed other substations.

Meyers added that Penelec hopes to fully restore service by Thursday afternoon. A full list of customers affected by outages can be found by visiting outages.firstenergycorp.com/pa.