By Associated Press - Friday, May 20, 2016

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The Latest on a large power outage in the Salt Lake City area (all times local):

10:50 a.m.

Classes have been canceled at a high school in a Salt Lake City suburb after a power outage blanketing the metro area left the school in the dark.

Alta High School in Sandy lost power Friday morning and utility officials say they won’t be able to restore electricity until late afternoon.

Canyons School District says in a statement that students were being kept in a common area with natural lighting until busses could take them home or other transportation was provided.

The district says parents were also notified.

Authorities say about 85,000 homes and businesses lost power for hours starting Thursday night amid windy weather.

___

Advertisement
Advertisement

9:15 a.m.

Authorities say some 85,000 homes and businesses lost power for hours in some cases amid windy weather in the Salt Lake City area.

Rocky Mountain Power officials said the outage late Thursday night affected a wide swatch of the Wasatch Front, from Centerville in the north to Tooele in the west.

Service had been restored to most of those customers by Friday morning, though some traffic lights were still out during the commute.

Rocky Mountain power is still investigating exactly what caused the outage, though wind was thought to be a factor.

Advertisement
Advertisement

KSL-TV reports that the outage caused the Tesoro Refinery in North Salt Lake to go into shutdown mode, which made its regular flare stack flames increase in size to burn off excess gas.

Copyright © 2026 The Washington Times, LLC.

Please read our comment policy before commenting.