Cleanup continues after high winds pummel region
Cleanup continued following Friday鈥檚 storms that pummeled the region, knocking out power for thousands of people and toppling countless trees.
Crews have made good progress restoring power to the more than 25,000 West Penn Power customers who were without electricity, including in hard hit Washington County.
By early Monday afternoon, a little more than 600 customers in Washington County remained without power, which was down from the nearly 4,000 outages reported Sunday.
One of those people is Angela Watters, whose home in the 1200 block of North Main Street in South Strabane only had 鈥渉alf-power鈥� that allowed her to have some electricity usage. But her neighbor across the street and others nearby have been without any electricity since Friday night when two large evergreens toppled over onto North Main Street and brought down the power lines with them.
鈥淭here鈥檚 so many call-outs, you can鈥檛 talk to anyone,鈥� Watters said about trying to find out when power to her neighborhood will be fully restored. 鈥淓veryone you talk to is saying they鈥檙e backed up. But we鈥檙e not a priority.鈥�
By 3 p.m. Monday, that section of North Main Street between Sherrard Drive and Beech Street remained closed with no timeline on when the trees would be removed from the roadway and power would be restored. Sawhorse barricades were set up in an effort to block traffic, but Watters said some drivers at night went around them and then had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the toppled trees that were obscured by the darkness.
In Washington Park, park employees were removing trees and branches that had fallen onto roads and loading them into dump trucks to dispose of them elsewhere in the park.
But besides the toppled trees across the region, there was very little damage to structures or property. Washington County Public Safety Director Gerry Coleman said a trailer near Lone Pine was smashed by a tree and some brush fires were reported due to downed power lines sparking a few blazes, but the county came out of the windstorms Friday night relatively unscathed.
鈥淲e fared pretty well,鈥� Coleman said.
But Friday was an 鈥渁bsolutely extremely busy鈥� day for emergency responders across the region, Coleman said. He said Washington County鈥檚 911 center, which recently relocated to the county airport while Courthouse Square is demolished, received 1,784 calls during the storm, which fell only behind the number during last April鈥檚 severe storms that caused extensive power outages and property damage.
鈥淭his was probably a close second,鈥� Coleman said, adding they doubled the number of dispatchers on duty to help with the high call volume. 鈥淚t was busy, for sure.鈥�
Other areas were getting back to normal, with less than 20 outages reported in both Fayette and Greene counties, where storm damage was minimal. Crews were out most of the weekend, repairing downed power lines and trying to repair or replace broken utility poles.
鈥淔irst Energy could only do so much,鈥� Coleman said. 鈥淏ut we鈥檙e back to a normal day.鈥�
Anyone who is still experiencing power outages can contact West Penn Power by calling 1-888-LIGHTSS, texting 鈥淥UT鈥� to 544487, or going online to www.firstenergycorp.com/outages to view the current situation.