Thousands without power in Leesburg after lightning strikes transmission system

LEESBURG, Fla. — Much of the city of Leesburg is in the dark after a fire at a power station there Tuesday afternoon.

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According to Leesburg Fire Rescue, the east power substation on U.S. 441 suffered fire damage causing an outage through much of the city.

It happened around 7:30 p.m. when lightning struck Duke Florida’s transmission system, which feeds a majority of Leesburg power and forced it to go offline.

About 12,600 Leesburg customers are without power, city officials said.

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Parts of Fruitland park are also affected by the outage.

It’s still unknown how long the outage is expected to last.

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Crews from the Leesburg Electric Department are expected to be on scene throughout the night working to repair the damage.

Extra Leesburg police officers have also been called in to help work intersections where traffic signals are inoperable.

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Leesburg Fire Rescue has not commented on what may have started the fire.

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