People in Blacksburg experienced lights dimming and flickering, but AEP says no one ever fully lost power.
But because so many people called in the issue, it registered as an outage, and customers received a mobile alert.
According to AEP around 7:30 on Tuesday night, a piece of equipment which helps regulate voltage caught fire.
AEP says it would have caused an explosion, something a student here at Virginia Tech describe after walking by the building when it happened.