Power outage empties Palace Casino

BILOXI, Miss. - The power is out at Biloxi's Palace Casino Resort. An electrical short Sunday forced an evacuation of the entire property.

General Manager Keith Crosby said the cause of the outage might be a rodent that fell into the wiring in the casino's primary power panel.

Crosby said a technician from Baton Rouge was expected to fix the problem Monday.

He said the hotel was at 50 percent occupancy, so about 100 rooms had to be evacuated, as well as an unspecified number of guests in the casino.

Crosby tells The Sun Herald that hotel guests were directed to nearby casinos for rooms, which were paid for by Palace Casino.