DEVELOPING STORY: Power outage affecting thousands of Wilmington customers

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Nearly 6,000 Duke Energy customers are without power in portions of Wilmington this afternoon. Outage reports starting coming in just after 1pm Wednesday afternoon.

The outage covers a portion North and South 3rd Sts. in downtown Wilmington, a portion of Market St. between the downtown area and Darlington Ave., and several neighborhoods south of Market St., between 3rd St. S. and Independence Blvd.

According to a Duke Energy spokesperson, a problem with one of its substations appears to be the cause. Power crews are working to fix the problem, and hope to have service restored within the next few hours.