A widespread power outage combined with merciless heat Sunday set the stage for a not so pleasant weekend for many Denton residents.

An equipment failure at the Garland Power & Light power plant, where Denton’s electricity company gets some of its power, caused a chain reaction, which led to the loss of electricity to at least 3,000 Denton customers and 150 or more businesses — all on the hottest day of the year so far.

“The equipment failure at Garland Power & Light led to one thing that kind of sparked another and so on,” said Denton Municipal Electric spokeswoman Lisa Lemons. “From there it affected different pockets [of Denton].”

DME supplies power to about 46,000 homes and businesses in Denton.

From 10:45 a.m. to about 3:15 p.m. the power was out in various sections of the city. By 5 p.m., most people had power again, Lemons said, but DME couldn’t handle the whole load, so they implemented a plan to use rolling blackouts in 15-minute increments.

“We got everybody up, and we want to keep them up,” she said.

The rolling blackouts made it so that no one would be without power for more than 15 minutes at a time, she said.

The power provider hoped to stop the rolling blackouts by 7 p.m., but, Lemons said, they 6:30 p.m. power was restored to all areas affected, Lemons confirmed later in the evening.

The blackouts and heat had a big effect on local businesses as well, many of which decided not to even open their doors on Sunday.

One of the businesses that opened was Beth Marie’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor and Soda Fountain on the Square, where crew leader Ashley Mayer said the heat is just a part of living in Texas.

“It was really hot,” Mayer said. “But it’s August. It’s always hot in August.”

Traffic lights throughout the city were another victim of the outage. Many were not working until evening hours, Denton police spokesman Jim Bryan said.

The Denton Police Department responded to at least three traffic accidents Sunday, he said, but he didn’t know if they were due to the power outage.

“They happened right after it first started,” Bryan said. “I don’t know if they all can be attributed to the power, though.”

The mercury reached 103 in Denton on Sunday and 104 at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, which is the highest so far this year. The record for this date at D/FW is 106. Temperatures are likely to hover around 102 in Denton through Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures toward the end of the week should dip to 98.

MONTY MILLER JR. can be reached at 940-566-6875. His e-mail address mwmiller@dentonrc.com