AUBURN - Business came to a standstill and traffic slowed to a crawl after a power outage hit a busy commercial district in Auburn Wednesday afternoon.

Auburn police directed traffic along a busy stretch of Grant Avenue on the city's east side after a power failure at about 1 p.m. About 2,100 customers were affected, according to Barbara Murdock, New York State Electric & Gas spokeswoman.

Employees stood outside their darkened restaurants and shops, as some businesses were forced to turn customers away.

Most had no emergency generators.

Murdock said a squirrel climbing on a lightning arrestor damaged the transformer on Mutton Hill Road, causing the outage.

Dozens of roads in Auburn were affected by the outage, as were several in Weedsport.

Power was restored in about 90 minutes.

At Walgreen's, about 25 customers were in the store when the lights went out.

“Everybody that was shopping stayed in,” said manager Linda Tuck.

Only one register was open as employees led customers around with flashlights to do their shopping and checked them out with calculators, accepting cash only. Auxiliary lights went on when the power went out, but after it returned, all of the registers had to be rebooted and all prices and UPC numbers entered into the system, Mark Querrie, assistant manager said.

At Denny's, about 25 people were being served when the lights went out.

Server Lisa Bell said all customers were processed manually, and once they left, no one was admitted for about an hour.

McDonald's closed for two hours.

“It was almost the end of the lunch hour when it happened, so we were lucky,” manager Jim Menning said.

“We had to discard prepared items, and couldn't serve any beverages. Also, if you can't do buns, you can't do anything else.”

Applebee's manager Cris LaFleur said his establishment probably lost $1,300 in sales during the two hours it closed.

“It was about three quarters full with 45 or 50 customers,” he said. “People took it a lot better than we thought.”

Customers were turned away while staff used emergency crash kits to process customers.

Employees can swipe credit cards manually, then enter the numbers in the system when electricity is restored. The credit information is discarded.

“It took a lot longer than normal,” LaFleur said.

Burger King lost close to $1,000 in sales, waste and labor, a manager said.

At Wal-Mart, as soon as power goes out, an emergency back-up plan goes into action.

The store calls the home office for a refrigerated truck while priorities include the safety of associates and customers, co-manager Chad Bogacz said.

“We move people to the front of the building, and each department has flashlights near the registers,” he said. “Registers work on backup batteries, while we get all of the people as close to one side of the store as possible,” he said.

There were about 50 or 60 customers in Wal-Mart when the lights dimmed.

“People could leave their carts and come back,” Bogacz said, “but most cashed out.”

Bogacz estimated a $30,000 to $35,000 loss in sales during the two-hour outage.

Staff writer Kathleen Barran can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 238 or kathleen.barran@lee.net