(Atlantic, Iowa) – If your power went out at around 10:45-p.m. Tuesday, in Atlantic, you can blame a raccoon for truly keeping you in the dark. Atlantic Municipal Utilities General Manager Steve Tjepkes said the incident started in the area of the Atlantic School District’s Bus Barn.

Approximately 267 AMU customers were without power for a little over three-hours before electricity was restored.

The area affected included parts of 3rd Street Place to Olive Street, and south to about 10th Street, and as far east to Burger King. Adding to the fact the incident happened overnight, AMU crews had to contend with some gusty winds, but at least there wasn’t a thunderstorm, which can really present dangerous working conditions.

Tjepkes said AMU is taking steps to hopefully prevent such outages from occurring again, or at least limit the length of the outage.

He said AMU is happy their crews were able to get out and fix the problem, get the power restored, and return home safely.