NATCHEZ — More than 600 Entergy customers in the downtown Natchez area lost power during a Friday afternoon squall.

The outage started just after 3 p.m.

When the lights go out, so do traffic lights, which raises concerns for traffic safety, said Natchez Police Chief Cal Green.

“We’re trying to keep everything flowing right now,” she said. “If people don’t have to come into downtown right now, please don’t. The more traffic we have the harder it is. … We’ve got a lot going on right now so if people could just avoid downtown for the time being until the power is back up, that would be helpful.”

According to Entergy, the estimated restoration time for most of the downtown area is 5:30 p.m.