Severe weather causes power outages, road closures in Ohio: FirstEnergy updates

(WKBN) — It may be several days before customers in the Valley see their power return following the powerful windstorm on Saturday.

According to the most recent information from FirstEnergy’s power outage website, many customers may not see their power come back on until as late as 4 p.m. Wednesday.

FirstEnergy reported close to 90,000 customers without power in the Valley on Saturday. Though the number has decreased, many thousand are still affected by the outages.

As of 10 a.m. Tuesday, the following number of customers were reporting outages:

Mahoning County: 1,222
Trumbull County: 2,738
Columbiana County: 565
Mercer County: 2,030
Lawrence County: 215

FirstEnergy released this statement Sunday morning:

“Our Ohio Edison and Penn Power crews worked through challenging conditions overnight to restore power to more than 76,000 customers impacted by weather across the Mahoning and Shenango valleys. With the help of outside resources, they continue working around the clock in 16-hour shifts to restore service to about 65,000 local customers who remain without power, primarily in communities with a lot of tree-related damages.

At this time, there are hundreds, even thousands, of damage locations – including hundreds of broken poles and downed spans of power lines. At this stage, our main priority is clearing hazards – such as downed power lines, downed trees and equipment blocking the roads – and assessing the damage so that our line crews can access the site of an outage and begin to safely make the repairs. This can be a time-consuming process.

Also, we could not safely send our crews up in bucket trucks when wind speeds are over 40 mph last night, which hampered our restoration efforts.

While we do not have exact estimated restoration times available for customers at this time, we do expect this to be a multi-day restoration effort. We will provide restoration updates for specific locations as they become available on our outage maps:

For Ohio

For Pennsylvania

Safety is our TOP PRIORITY. Please use caution if you must go outdoors. This weather has the potential to cause downed- or low-hanging power lines that could be hidden in storm debris or downed trees. If you see any downed- or low-hanging wire, assume it is energized and dangerous; stay far away and report it immediately to 911.

To our customers, thank you for your patience and support of our crews while they work through these tough weather conditions. Stay safe!”
Lauren Siburkis, Senior Communications Representative at FirstEnergy

Local authorities are also asking the public not to call 911 for power issues and keep the lines open for emergencies.

In Warren, as of Tuesday at 3 p.m., people are asked to avoid the following roads due to downed wires or trees:

4th St. between Highland Ave. and Tod Ave. Closed (tree down across the street in wires)
Draper St. between Ridge Rd and Niles Rd.
Forrest St. at N. Park and Atlantic Ave. Closed (tree down across the street in wires)
Northfield and Oakdale (open but needs to be cleaned up)
Freemont Ave. NE between Comstock St. and Griswold St. Closed ( Large tree over wires)

In Youngstown, the following roads are closed due to downed power lines: