A power outage affected 500 customers of Empire Electric early Thursday morning for a few hours.

The outage was reported at 4:52 a.m. and was restored at 7:47 a.m., said Empire member services manager Bobbe Jones.

The outage extended from Lebanon Road to U.S. 491 and north to Colo. 184.

The outage was not weather-related, rather an unexplained technical problem occurred on a small section of underground line at the Arriola substation.

“We rerouted power to the area from an adjacent circuit, and we do not expect any more outages due to this issue,” Jones said.

Maintenance will be scheduled as soon as possible to repair the Arriola substation.