TUCSON - Power was knocked out for about 36,000 Tucson Electric Power customers around town this afternoon after a bird flew into equipment at one of the power substations.

TEP's Joseph Barrios confirms that at about 1:40 p.m. this afternoon, customers in central Tucson, midtown, and the southern and western areas of town were without power.

The outage occurred after a "bird made contact with equipment" at one of the substations, Barrios says.

TEP was able to restore power by 2:07 p.m. this afternoon.