She then heard another blast and saw flames on the transformer, but they subsided.

"It was a big-time boom," said Saghir Ahmad, owner of House of Kashmir, 130 Calder Alley. "It was pretty scary," he said. People were on the street but did not get hurt, Ahmad said.

Spanos and Ahmad estimated they lost several hundred dollars worth of sales because they had to temporarily close their stores during the outage, as did many other downtown businesses.

Some businesses continued operating without power, however. Woodring's Floral Gardens, 145 S. Allen St., remained open while employees worked by lantern and candlelight, said manager Michael Albright.

Spats Café & Speakeasy, 142 E. College Ave., kept its doors open as well, serving cold salads and sandwiches, said manager Diane Byers. The restaurant did surprisingly well, even though there was no power, she said.

"Most of our business was from the university and people didn't know what was going on," she said.

The power outage caused some problems for beauty salons, such as Designer's Denn, 208 Calder Way. Manager Kelly Clarke said stylists continued working with clients who were there at the time of the outage, but could only perform services that didn't require electricity.

"Most of our clients were very understanding and willing to be rescheduled or have done what was possible," she said.

The State College Department of Public Works set up portable stop signs at intersections where traffic lights were out, State College Police Chief Tom King said. Most of the borough's police officers on duty monitored traffic, which flowed without many problems, he said.