Power once again failed throughout downtown Whitehorse early this afternoon for nearly an hour and a half, impacting a number of businesses and homes.

ATCO Electric Yukon spokeswoman Stephanie Cunha said early this afternoon the outage at 12:40 p.m. beghan when a fault occurred as crews were replacing pieces on the Shipyards substation.

The crews had been at the substation working on it after last night's power outage.

As Cunha explained it, they were taking a precautionary measure in replacing a number of similar pieces for the equipment.

Just as crews did last night, they had to reroute power, with many consumers finally restored by a little after 2 p.m. today.

The same customers who were impacted by last night’s power outage saw their power fail yet again today.

ATCO Electric’s problems also caused delays in the production and distribution of today’s Star.

Anyone who had been trying to get a jump on their Christmas shopping season early Wednesday evening by shopping downtown was out of luck.

That power outage saw the juice suddenly fail at 5:50 p.m. for approximately 1,600 customers in most of the downtown area.

Untold numbers of businesses’ employees and customers were also affected by the failure.

The affected area stretched from Front Street to Sixth Avenue and from the Real Canadian Superstore on Second Avenue to the SS Klondike.

Many of those ATCO Electric Yukon customers impacted by the outage were local businesses trying to see to their own customers at the time of the failure.

Many, such as restaurants had to deal with lost revenue.

Earls Restaurant, located outside the blacked-out area, found itself hosting diners who had originally intended to eat elsewhere.

An equipment fault at the Shipyards Park substation is being blamed for the outage, though it’s unknown what cause the fault.

“A full investigation into the fault will continue (today) when repairs are made in the substation,” ATCO Electric Yukon officials said in a statement.

Power was restored throughout the downtown by rerouting available power to other substations.

“As a result, power was restored to customers at different times throughout the evening,” ATCO noted.

Nearly half the customers had power restored by 6:40 p.m.

All the remaining customers received their power back by 7:17 p.m.

“ATCO Electric Yukon apologizes for the inconvenience that (last night’s) power outage caused and thanks customers for their patience and understanding as we worked to get power on as quickly and safely as possible,” officials said.

Meanwhile, crews are busy again this morning working to restore power in Haines Junction.

Cunha said the community’s 500 customers lost power at 8:10 a.m. when a tree fell and broke a power line.

Crews worked on repairs, with power restored to about all Haines Junction customers by 11:30 a.m.