BLOOMINGTON - More than 11,000 homes and businesses were without power late Monday night after a problem at a substation, but power was restored to most areas before midnight.

"We lost our Bloomington south substation," said Neal Johnson, AmerenIP spokesman.

The lights went out about 9:30 p.m., affecting not only AmerenIP customers but also some served by Corn Belt Energy Corp., which gets electricity from AmerenIP.

Johnson said the cause could not be determined, but an animal may have gotten into the substation.

Outage areas and the number of customers affected at 11 p.m. included: parts of southeast Bloomington and rural Bloomington, 6,231 customers; Downs area, 565; LeRoy, 1,584; Shirley/Funks Grove area, 169: Ellsworth, 38; and McLean, 23.

As of 6:30 a.m., Ameren was reporting no outages in the Bloomington-Normal area, according to the company's Web site.

About 3,000 Corn Belt customers were affected in Monday night's outage, said Larry Young, Corn Belt operations manager.

"We lost two substations," he said. That includes Gillum, which affects the Crestwicke subdivision area and the LeRoy substation.