Why lights flickered across central Ohio on Oct. 15, 2025

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- If you noticed your lights flicking about 9 a.m. Wednesday, it turns out that it wasn't just you. It happened all across central Ohio.

The power fluctuations happened for about a minute, most noticeably with flickering lights. In a thread on Columbus' Reddit page, people from across the area reported the same thing, from Pickerington to Upper Arlington and from Westerville to the Ohio State campus area.

Despite a joke that it had to have been because of all of the central Ohio-area data centers, it wasn't that. NBC4 reached out to AEP Ohio, and it provided an explanation.

"There was an issue with non-AEP Ohio equipment that caused a transmission line to trip, causing the flickering lights in many places across central Ohio," the statement read.

Further details were not available, but despite the initial flickering, other problems were not reported. As of noon, fewer than 200 outages were reported for all of Franklin County.