Over 4,000 Gulf Power customers in Panama City Beach found themselves in the dark last night.

Lynn Erickson with Gulf Power says they're not sure what exactly caused the
three-hour power outage, but the high demand made it difficult to bring back quickly.

A Thomas Drive business owner says he was heavily affected by the power outage. The owner and operator of Mr. Surf's Surf Shop says the power outage happened on the Fourth of July last year around the same time.

He says it cost him thousands of dollars then and even more this year. He says he spoke to five different families this morning who say they won't be coming back to Panama City Beach to celebrate Independence Day because of the inconvenience.

He was especially angered, since he says this is the busiest he's ever seen Independence Day on the beach.

Tony Johnson of Mr. Surf's Surf Shop said, "It hit our pockets hard, and we're in a recession and we're trying to squeeze out every dollar we can, and it's hard to do that, and yet they demand from us higher prices, and I don't mind paying them if we're getting good service, but we're not getting the service we deserve."

Kay Fortenberry, an Alabama tourist, said, "Well, it was time to get ready to go out to dinner, and it wasn't the end of the world, but it was a little inconvenience."

However, Lynn Erickson with Gulf Power's says the high demand made it difficult to bring it back right away. She says no one could build a large enough system to support a city when it's running at full capacity. She says if it had happened last weekend, it would have been right back on.

Because of so many people requiring electricity, it would have been dangerous to bring it all back at once.

Erickson says instead they had to repair it grid by grid. She says the Panama City Beach transformer, along with the substation and switches, were all recently replaced and are built to supply the high demands of Panama City Beach.

She says it's extremely unfortunate for the beach businesses, but there's nothing else they can do when it goes out at peak times.