NATCHEZ — Problems at an Entergy substation near Liberty Road early Sunday morning caused as many as 3,300 customers to lose power throughout the day, Entergy Customer Service Manager Tim Runnels said.

Runnels said he believed lighting might have struck a transformer switch at the substation near the former Johns Manville site during Saturday’s storm. He said the switch continued to work until it shut down after 6 a.m. Sunday.

The outage affected the areas near Roselawn, Melrose-Montebello, Natchez Regional Medical Center and Natchez Community Hospital, First Baptist Church and Parkway Baptist Church and nearby neighborhoods.

By 9:42 a.m., most customers’ power was restored as power from the other three area substations was transferred to the effected areas.

Intermittent outages continued throughout the day as the other substations struggled to maintain customers usually powered by the Liberty Road substation, Runnels said.

“There was so much load on the equipment,” Runnels said. “It’s just this time of year; it’s the summer peak load.”

Both hospitals said generators operated during the outages.