Many Covington residents and several downtown businesses spent hours in the dark Wednesday night after a broken power line knocked out the electricity for several blocks.

Covington Utility Director Bill Meecham said the city was not 100 percent sure what caused the power line between Elm and Usher streets to break.

"We didn't find a smoking gun," Meecham said. "But we're putting our resources into finding out what happened.'

There were no dead animals found near the downed power line and no accidents occurred in the area. Meecham said the line was old and might have just given out.

The downed line fell onto another power line, which caused a chain reaction of blown transformers that knocked out power in the area.