"The city's public lighting grid suffered a major cable failure that has caused the entire grid to lose power at approximately 10:30 this morning," Detroit News quoted Detroit Press Office as saying.
It said the outage resulted in buildings being evacuated such as Joe Louis Arena, Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice and the Detroit Institute of Arts in the central parts of Detroit.
Firefighters who were evacuating Coleman A. Young Municipal Center said numerous people were stuck in elevators.
Even though it was reported the outage was caused by a cable failure, Alexis Wiley, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan's chief of staff, was quoted by Detroit News as commenting that "We're still gathering information."
The outage also meant that public schools across Detroit declared a half-day dismissal procedure, and two hospitals and a jail ran on partial and backup power, according to Detroit News.
