Nearly 5,000 lose power in Las Cruces area on stormy night

UPDATE: Power was restored just after 1 a.m. Tuesday, according to an El Paso Electric spokesman; he said the cause of the outages were still being determined.

ORIGINAL REPORT: LAS CRUCES, New Mexico -- Nearly 5,000 homes and businesses in the Las Cruces area lost electricity on a Monday night that saw stormy weather throughout the region.

There were multiple power outages involving a total of 4,695 El Paso Electric customers that were reported just before 10 p.m., according to the utility company's outage map.

A cause for the outage wasn't immediately known, so it was unclear if stormy weather with heavy rain and wind, lightning and hail played a factor in the outage.

There was no word as to when electrical service might be restored; an EPE spokesperson wasn't immediately available for comment.