Commentary on this story on Thursday's Headlines Podcast .

After several hours in the dark, the Pinehurst area has returned to the light.

An electrical mobile substation serving the Pinehurst area failed about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, causing the area to lose all power. A replacement mobile substation was brought in from Raleigh and made operational about 8:20 p.m.

"We're back up," said Andy Honeycutt with Progress Energy.

Janeen Driscoll, communications director for the Pinehurst Resort, confirmed that power had returned.

Honeycutt said the new mobile substation arrived about 6 p.m. but it took a few hours to install.

"This piece of equipment is extremely heavy and difficult to deliver," he said. "We had a lot of folks working hard."

He said he is not aware of any similar occurrence in which a mobile substation has failed.

"This was very unusual," he said.

About 2,000 customers were affected. The impacted area included the hospital, Pinehurst Resort and the central business district. The system provides power to the area extending from the traffic circle to Taylortown.

Crews were doing construction work on a Pinehurst substation as part of a system upgrade project when the mobile substation, being used in place of the under-construction unit, indicated that it would fail.

Honeycutt said crews had to cut the power before the unit failed.

He encourages anyone with questions to call customer servive at 1-800-452-2777.

The substation upgrade process, which began in April, will continue until the end of the year.

Check ThePilot.com for updates on this developing story.