SANTA ANA, Calif. (KABC) -- A fire at an electrical substation in Orange County caused a power outage that left 28,000 customers in Irvine without power and temporarily grounded all flights at John Wayne Airport, officials said.
Southern California Edison said the substation caught fire at 6:20 p.m. Friday and affected customers in Irvine and Newport Beach. The substation was later de-energized but sustained damage.
Crews were working to restore power.
The outage knocked out power for all three terminals at John Wayne Airport and prompted all inbound flights to be diverted.
The airport reported a full ground stop in a tweet shortly after 7 p.m.
Orange County Fire Authority responded to the area of Jamboree Road and Michaelson Drive, where they extinguished the vault fire that led to the outage.
Power to terminals slowly started to come back on around 9 p.m. but an airport spokesperson said there would be no more departures and planned on resuming operations by 7 a.m. Saturday.
Guests who were supposed to pick up passengers are advised to call the airline to get information on where diverted flights would be landing.
A "care and reception facility" was initially set up at Northwood High School those in need of shelter during the power outage. That facility was later moved to Northwood Community Park at 4531 Bryan Ave. All Irvine community centers were serving as cooling centers.
At 6:40 a.m. Saturday, the airport announced it was open for all commercial flights.
The cause of the fire was under investigation.
