An equipment failure knocked electricity off in the U.S. 15-501 corridor near Walmart Friday morning.

The outage was reported at 11:12 a.m., and power was restored by 11:40 a.m., said Andy Honeycutt, community relations manager for the Southern Region of Progress Energy.

The equipment failure caused a feeder to go off line at the Yadkin Park main distribution line in Aberdeen, Honeycutt said.

Power was out in a location that includes Walmart, Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse and the State Credit Union, a heavy commercial area that also includes several restaurants and other retailers. It also extended into parts of Southern Pines. A total of 670 customers lost power during the outage.

"We take all outages very seriously," Honeycutt said. "We were pleased to be able to get power restored quickly."

With stop lights not functioning because of the outage, Aberdeen police were in the area directing traffic.