SUMMIT COUNTY, Ohio — Thousands of FirstEnergy customers in Summit County lost power Friday, and many are still without as the company works to restore services throughout the afternoon.

A communications representative for FirstEnergy confirmed to Spectrum News 1 that the outage was caused by an animal coming into contact with substation equipment.

The representative said a few thousand customers had power restored just after 2 p.m. and that they are "working to restore the remaining 8,770 customers by 5:30 p.m."