Manassas

A transformer malfunction at the Prince William Substation left nearly 4,000 residents and businesses in the dark Sunday night — the third major outage in just over a week to hit the city.

City officials said the outage began around 9:30 p.m. when a bushing failed on a transformer, triggering an automatic shutdown of part of the system. Crews were dispatched immediately and used backfeeding, a method of rerouting electricity through alternate lines, to restore service. Power was fully restored by 10:30 p.m.

Just days after Dominion Energy’s feed failure darkened large sections of Manassas, a separate power outage hit the city’s downtown area early Wednesday, October 16 — this time caused by a blown manhole inside the city’s own distribution system.

City spokesman Jeremy Beale said the incident was unrelated to the Dominion outage on October 11, which knocked out the Battery Heights and Prince William substations and affected about 6,000 customers.