A mechanical device failure caused power outages Friday morning to Mahomet schools and businesses.

Leigh Morris, spokesman for Ameren Illinois, said the company had two outages
on file, both in the morning, due to mechanical device failure.

There was no evidence the outages were weather-related, according to Morris.

Ameren workers are patrolling the line to make sure there's not a
secondary issue. Morris said monitoring the lines after an outage is
common practice.

At least some customers experienced a momentary outage, that lasted a
little over a minute, in the afternoon. Morris said that may have been
because of switching taking place, where power was being moved from one
line to another.

"We don't anticipate any other outages," he said.

About 455 customers were affected.