LARGE swathes of Oswestry town centre are still without power this afternoon after flooding damaged a sub station.
Many businesses are closed as they, along with residential properties in Bailey Street, Arthur Street and the surrounding areas, face a power outage which could now go on until 6pm tonight.
SP Energy had initially hoped to return power by 2pm.
Firefighters from the town were called to the Home Bargains building on Bailey Street in the early hours of Monday (September 26) morning to reports of flooding in the basement where the sub station is based.
They confirmed there was five feet of water and have been at the scene pumping it out.
Max Smith from SP Energy Networks explained that the rising water level had caused an explosion.
He said: "It was a slow leak that had gone unnoticed for some time. When the height of the water got up to a point, it caused an explosion."
Mr Smith continued: "We had all bar 18 back on supply in one hour and 20 minutes following the incident at around 4am."
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The SP Energy team has been on the scene all day digging a big hole in New Street to enable repairs.
Mr Smith said: "Our main priority is to get the cables reconnected so we can restore power to affected businesses.
"We've had to dig a bigger hole to get at the cable."
Scottish Power's website has confirmed that some power has been restored, but has been updated to say a total restoration is likely to be 6pm.
A spokesman confirmed what work was carried out.
They said: "Due to a cable fault caused by flooding at an Oswestry substation, parts of the town experienced a power cut early on Monday morning.
"Our engineers were immediately deployed to investigate and work to resolve the issue.
"Half of all customers impacted by the outage had their supply restored within 30 minutes and power was restored for all remaining customers by Monday evening.
"Our engineers are working to fully repair the fault and also following up in relation to the root cause of the flooding."
Officials from Severn Trent Water were also at the scene earlier on Monday.
Although many businesses closed for the day with notes left on doors, one family-run business stayed open.
Jewellery store RJ Christian Ltd on Bailey Street lit and candle and got on with business.
Lyn Evans, shop assistant, said: "It's been business as usual for us but the only difference is that we've had to send customers to the cash machine.
"We got a candle out on the counter and we use a manual till anyway, so it's not made a difference.
"So we've been able to go about our day as usual."
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