Ameren Missouri officials think a lightning strike Tuesday night led to Wednesday afternoon power outage in eastern Jefferson City.
Kent Martin, an Ameren spokesman in St. Louis, said a 69-kilovolt line was found wrapped around a pole near Seven Hills Road Wednesday, after 983 electric customers lost power about 2 p.m.
"Obviously, lines just don't fall off poles," he said, "so, our best guess right now - while we continue to investigate - is that it suffered a lightning strike last night and, eventually fell."
Customers included both commercial businesses and area residences.
Power was to be restored to all customers by early Wednesday evening. As of 6 p.m., power had been restored to all but 27 customers, who were brought back online later in the evening.